Connected vehicles sales are on a recovery path, despite chip shortages, reported ABI Research Thursday. Consumers are becoming “more demanding” about in-vehicle infotainment, “driving strong interest in connected vehicles and boosting growth opportunities,” it said. ABI projects 20% growth in connected vehicle sales in 2021 from 2020, and a 10.4% compound annual growth rate through 2026. The recently announced Ford-Google partnership (see 2102010062) “shows a considerable migration to Android OS,” which will have more than doubled penetration in production vehicles by 2024, said ABI: Shipments of vehicles with “connected infotainment” will return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels this year.

NTIA asked for comment by June 7 on “activities, priorities, and policies that advance telecommunications and information and communications technology development worldwide” as the U.S. prepares for the ITU’s World Telecommunication Development Conference, says Thursday's Federal Register. The conference is Nov. 8-19 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Trade groups whose members would pay foreign digital services taxes and those whose members would have to pay if tariffs are hiked up to 25% on products from the countries imposing DSTs agree the levies are wrong and government should use full persuasive power to convince countries like India, the U.K. and Spain not to impose these taxes. Tech groups split on whether tariffs are the right tool to convince countries to roll back or never pass DSTs. The Computer & Communications Industry Association gave the most direct support of levying tariffs on DST countries. In testimony at a virtual Office of the U.S. Trade Representative hearing Monday, CCIA Policy Counsel Rachael Stelly said USTR should work for a global international taxes solution and impose tariffs “to deter countries and send a strong message. CCIA "takes seriously the impact that tariffs can have," she said. "Tariffs should only be used in limited circumstances, in a targeted manner, and where there is a clear strategy in place designed to change the behavior of a trading partner. USTR’s proposed action appears to meet this standard.” Internet Association Director-Trade Policy Jordan Haas said IA has no position on the proposed retaliatory tariffs and hopes duties will never be levied because ideally, countries will roll back DST laws. He's concerned more countries are thinking of imposing such taxes. The App Association opposed tariffs, concerned targeted countries could retaliate and its small company members would be hurt. Representatives from the Retail Industry Leaders Association, National Retail Federation and others spoke against the tariffs.

Global Eagle will use Eutelsat Ku-band transponders to add capacity in North America for its aviation connectivity customers, Eutelsat said Monday, announcing the multi-year deal involving the Eutelsat 7A satellite. It said the satellite will be renamed Eutelsat 139WA.

Digital services taxes drove countries back to the negotiating table on international tax harmonization, and now it may be hard to roll back such DSTs, experts said. Many tech and other stakeholders oppose other countries' digital taxes. The U.S. was driven to talks again because so many countries were considering taxing revenue, rather than profit, of digital giants like Facebook and Google, Deloitte Managing Partner Bob Stack told a Washington International Trade Association webinar Thursday. "Countries need to commit to get rid of these DSTs. That's the deal to be had." Noting a U.S. proposal for Organization of Economic Coordination and Development member-countries to drop such levies, Miller & Chevalier's Loren Ponds said "it’s a matter of everybody dropping their weapons at the same time" and "nobody wants to go first." Georgetown Law professor Lilian Faulhaber reminded that most DSTs haven't actually been imposed. "Part of that is probably because USTR pushed back so hard," she said of the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. USTR didn't comment Friday.

Huawei, hit by U.S. and international export sanctions, on Wednesday said Q1 revenue fell 17% year on year to 152.2 billion Chinese yuan ($23.5 billion). It's the second consecutive quarterly drop. "2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it's also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape," said Eric Xu, the rotating chairman.

Eutelsat is buying an equity stake in OneWeb, with the geostationary orbit operator saying OneWeb's low earth orbit constellation will open the door to an addressable market beyond its current reach. Eutelsat said Tuesday it should close on its $550 million stake in the second half of the year. Eutelsat said it will use cash on hand and proceeds from the C-band auction for the investment. OneWeb "will become our main growth engine outside our broadcast and broadband applications," Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer said.

Online fraud will cost e-tailers more than $20 billion in losses globally this year, up from an estimated $17.5 billion in 2020, reported Juniper Research Monday. Bad actors are “exposing insecure fraud mitigation processes from merchants who are unfamiliar and unprepared for the continuing fraud challenges,” it said: Merchants should “do more to implement fraud prevention strategies” across e-commerce channels, or risk continuously bigger losses, it said. Though merchants “will be keen to reduce fraud rates from their current levels, they will be hesitant to introduce extra friction into the checkout process,” the research firm said. "Merchants will need to ensure that extra security checks are justified to the user, or they risk higher cart abandonment,” said analyst Susan Morrow. Juniper forecasts China will generate 40% of e-commerce fraud losses by 2025, due to “a relative lack of fraud detection and prevention.”

Unprecedented demand for semiconductors “stressed supply chains across the industry,” said new Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on a Q1 call Thursday. “We have doubled our internal wafer capacity the last few years, but the industry is now challenged by a shortage of foundry capacity, substrates and components.” It will take “a couple of years for the ecosystem to make the significant investments to address these shortages,” said Gelsinger. The “integrated device manufacturing” plan he announced March 23 is designed to “provide the industry another source of foundry capacity,” he said. “We cannot do it alone,” said Gelsinger. “The investment needed at the scale required is immense, and it will require close industry and government partnership.” Intel is “encouraged” by President Joe Biden’s “recognition of semiconductor manufacturing as a critical component of our national infrastructure,” he said.

Arianespace is to launch 36 OneWeb low earth orbit broadband satellites Monday from Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome, OneWeb said Thursday. The launch will bring OneWeb's total in-orbit constellation to 182 satellites and is the fifth of its "Five to 50" program to deliver connectivity to regions north of 50 degrees latitude by June, it said. Global service will be available in 2022, it said.