Paul Gluckman

Micron Technology’s DRAM business is in a “severe shortage,” but its NAND market “is showing signs of stabilization,” said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on a Wednesday call for fiscal Q2, ended March 4. Smartphone unit sales “are expected to show robust growth,” said Mehrotra. Micron expects “to benefit from higher content in 5G phones, which are forecast to double in calendar 2021 to more than 500 million units,” he said. Fiscal Q2 revenue in Micron’s mobile business unit was $1.8 billion, 44% higher than in the year-earlier quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner. “Mobile demand remains strong as 5G momentum increases and the mobile market continues to recover from the impact of the pandemic.” Total Q2 revenue of $6.24 billion gained 30%. The PC business benefits "from the remote work and learning trend that drove healthy notebook and Chromebook demand” in fiscal Q2, said Mehrotra. COVID-19 drove “changes in our economy that we believe will not only benefit us this year, but also serve to accelerate the digital transformation of the economy and drive new opportunities for Micron,” he said. “Recovery from the pandemic and pent-up demand are expected to drive strong demand growth in markets such as enterprise, cloud, desktop PCs, mobile, auto and industrial.”

BlackBerry is in "an exclusive negotiation" to sell a “major portion” of its patent portfolio to a “North American party,” said CEO John Chen on a Tuesday call for fiscal Q4, ended Feb. 28. BlackBerry would retain rights to use the patents, he said. Those for sale are “relevant” for mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking but “not useful to us today,” he said. The patents associated with BlackBerry’s “strategic software and services business” won't be involved, he said. “The company has not yet reached a definitive binding agreement, and negotiations are ongoing.” Licensing and other revenue was $50 million in Q4, said Chief Financial Officer Steve Rai. “Licensing activities have been limited not only due to the ongoing negotiations, but also because revenue from additional transactions that could have been completed in the quarter would have been treated as contingent revenue and deferred to future periods,” he said. “Had negotiations not been in progress, we believe licensing revenue would have been higher.” Rai's disclosure sent the stock tumbling 9.7% Friday, closing at $8.43.

Peak demand for LifeMD’s telemedicine services drove 2020 revenue 200% higher than in 2019, said CEO Justin Schreiber on a Q4 earnings call Monday. “December 2020 alone eclipsed the entire fourth quarter of 2019,” he said. “Despite the challenges and heartbreaks, perhaps one silver lining to the pandemic is how it catalyzed the rapid expansion and evolution of the telehealth industry.” LifeMD is on pace to finish Q1 with nearly 300% revenue growth compared with the 2020 quarter, said Schreiber. “We believe we've only begun to scratch the surface of what we see as a $600 billion and growing addressable market opportunity.” Shares closed 15.3% lower Tuesday at $15.98 from reports the stock was significantly overvalued.

Vizio shares on their second day regained some of the ground they lost Thursday when they debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares closed 8.4% higher Friday at $20.71, a few cents shy of the initial public offering’s proposed $21 opening. Unlike Thursday, when the stock plunged 17% as trading began midday and never fully recovered (see report in this publication, March 26), shares remained in positive territory throughout Friday.

Vizio went public Thursday when it priced its 12.25-million-share initial public offering at $21, valuing the company at close to $4 billion. Shares slumped nearly 17% to $17.50 when trading began around 1 p.m. EDT on the New York Stock Exchange as VZIO. It has been less than four weeks since the March 1 filing of Vizio’s S-1 registration statement. The SEC declared the registration and IPO effective Wednesday. Chairman-CEO William Wang will control a majority of the shares and about 92% of voting power. Contract manufacturers AmTran and Foxconn and LCD panel maker Innolux are among top outside shareholders. “Consumers are more and more moving to the connected TV space," Vizio Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend told Yahoo Finance Thursday. "They expect to have the apps that they want, their subscription services, as well as free streaming content available all in one place, and we’re delivering against that.” The IPO will bring Vizio “into the next chapter of its evolution,” he said. The company didn't respond to our questions. Shares closed down 9.1% at $19.10.

ATSC's annual NextGen Broadcast Conference is to return as a physical event Aug. 25-26 in Washington after going all-virtual in 2020. A spokesperson said Wednesday that ATSC will continue monitoring conditions on the ground in determining whether plans to hold the physical conference that way. Many other groups we surveyed plan in-person events later this year; see our report here.

Global e-commerce generated $4 trillion in 2020 revenue, up nearly 27% year on year, BrightDrop CEO Travis Katz told a Bank of America virtual investor conference. “Not only are we ordering more and more online, we want our deliveries to arrive faster than ever” and in a manner that doesn’t worsen traffic congestion or emissions, he said Monday. General Motors launched BrightDrop in January as “a true ecosystem of all-electric, first-to-last-mile solutions,” he said. Though e-commerce demand is soaring, “consumers are increasingly saying they want their packages delivered without harming the environment,” said Katz, a former Trip.com and News Corp. executive. "Global package alone is expected to be a $300 billion market this year.”

The U.S. domestic parcel market is expected to grow to 101 million packages a day by 2022, with e-commerce contributing 86% of the growth, said Brie Carere, FedEx chief marketing and communications officer, on a Thursday call for fiscal Q3, ended Feb. 28. E-commerce was about 21% of U.S. retail sales in Q4 2020, “significantly above the pre-pandemic level,” she said: “Some of our largest retail customers reported e-commerce growth rates in the high-double and even triple digits through 2020.” As the U.S. relaxes COVID-19 restrictions, “we recognize the potential for a short-term deceleration in e-commerce shopping,” she said. “However, we are very confident that e-commerce as a percentage of retail has a long growth runway.” The “long-term outlook” is for e-commerce revenue to rise at a 10% compound annual growth rate, she said. It’s launching FedEx International Connect Plus to serve e-commerce traffic between the U.S., Europe and Asia, she said. The stock closed 6.1% higher Friday at $279.58.

Both sides “will likely appeal on many fronts” Tuesday's initial determination (login required) at the International Trade Commission that Samsung committed no Tariff Act Section 337 violations by importing smartphones alleged to have infringed four patents asserted by flexible electronics manufacturer Dynamics (see 2103160051), said Dynamics attorney Robert Morris of Eckert Seamans. “We agree that Administrative Law Judge Cameron Elliot "got so much right; but there are some technicalities that may have gotten lost in the shuffle and we are confident the Commission will address those in our favor,” said Morris Tuesday. Elliot’s decision becomes the determination of full ITC in 60 days unless at least one party files a petition for review. Though Elliot said Samsung “directly infringes” a dozen Dynamics claims among the four patents asserted, he also ruled many other patent claims were invalid, and said Dynamics failed to satisfy Section 337's U.S. domestic industry requirement in all but one of the patents. Samsung didn’t comment Wednesday.

SolarWinds and other recent cyberthreats prove that “stopping a breach is no longer just about protecting end points” but also “encompasses cloud workload security and identity protection,” said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on a Tuesday call for fiscal Q4 ended Jan. 31. Organizations globally “are shedding legacy and inferior next-gen security technologies and accelerating their move to modern cloud-native technologies to meet the demands of today's threat landscape,” said Kurtz. “Legacy tech is no match for today's adversaries.” SolarWinds “raised awareness at the board level and will serve as an additional tailwind to the industry over the long term,” he said. CrowdStrike was a beneficiary of the trend, getting 77% subscription revenue growth in the quarter, with a record 1,480 net new subscription customers, he said. SolarWinds and the more recent Hafnium cyberthreat (see 2103030023) are driving “a crisis of trust within the Microsoft customer base,” said Kurtz. “Customers are looking to de-risk their security architecture by choosing an alternative vendor to Microsoft.” CrowdStrike is seeing fallout “across the board,” he said. “Just about every incident response we do involves Microsoft technology. So obviously we're focused on being able to protect it, but there's a lot of customers that are looking at this and saying, ‘Hey, we need to de-risk our environment, and we need another provider.’” Microsoft declined comment Wednesday.