EBay sees tens of billions of dollars of "untapped potential” in the global refurbished market through last week’s launch of its “new elevated experience for certified refurbished product” (see 2010210045), said CEO Jamie Iannone on a Q3 investor call Wednesday. Buyers can save up to 50% on branded, refurbished inventory compared with new goods, he said. EBay built in “assurances” to seed program adoption, including a two-year warranty, eBay money-back guarantee and “hassle-free, 30-day returns,” he said. “We are launching this program in partnership with globally recognized brands,” he said. “Not only does this program help with buyers’ budgets leading into the holiday season, it also helps to eliminate unnecessary waste by keeping products in circulation for many years to come.” Iannone thinks the program will expand the platform to many new buyers, he said: “It's a real sweet spot for eBay.”
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
Samsung’s foldable phones are getting very positive reviews from the trade and “actual users,” said a senior executive on a Q3 investor call. Foldables provide “a totally new mobile experience through an innovative form factor, differentiated design and also the multitasking through a larger screen,” said Ben Suh, Samsung senior vice president-investor relations. Samsung expects the foldable phones category “to record high growth in the future,” he said. The category experienced “very solid sales trends” this year, despite the “relatively weak demand” for premium smartphones amid COVID-19, he said. Foldables remain “a relatively small portion” of Samsung’s overall smartphone sales, said Suh. “We are planning to continue to increase our foldable portfolio and to widen the price ranges that we offer” by “leveraging the flexible technology that we have already built over several years,” he said. “We are expecting our foldable phone sales to increase for several years going forward.”
International Trade Commission Administrative Law Judge MaryJoan McNamara set an April 2022 target date for completing the Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations that LG, Samsung and TCL smart TVs and MediaTek, MStar and Realtek video processors infringe four DivX patents on adaptive bit rate streaming (see 2010140042), said her order (login required) posted Wednesday in docket 337-TA-1222. Under the ITC’s “pandemic evacuation” plan, ALJs won’t accept filings on paper, CDs or other physical media, she said. Hearings will be on Webex until the ITC issues notice that its headquarters “will once more be open” to the public, she said. Her order scheduled the first evidentiary hearing for July 7 “at a location to be announced closer to the Hearing date.”
Many over-the-top video offerings are “seeing substantial success” during the pandemic, said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton on a Q3 call Tuesday evening. “Some are doing better than others, but I do think OTT is here to stay.” As people view more content online, “that becomes more of the pattern and that will outlive the pandemic,” he said. “We'd all like to get back to a world when you can go out and see a movie,” but that’s not likely to happen “anytime soon,” he said. Akamai’s Asavie buy, announced Tuesday, will “complement” its security product lines with a “cellular-specific” security offering, “an important step in our strategy to capture the emerging opportunity in 5G,” said Leighton. “Deployment of 5G and IoT applications can provide significant opportunities for Akamai.” The impact of 5G on innovation will be “similar to the way broadband enabled new social networking apps that few could have imagined before,” he said. “As 5G networks come online, we believe that end users and connected devices will demand faster performance and greater scale than cloud data centers can provide.” The stock closed 8.7% lower Wednesday at $97.40.
PCs are “mission-critical” for working and studying from home in a “remote-everything world,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told investors Tuesday evening. Windows 10 monthly active devices are up double digits year over year, and Microsoft will have its largest lineup ever of Surface devices “this holiday season to support every person and work style,” he said. Microsoft Teams has more than 115 million “daily active users,” and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps “generated more than 30 billion collaboration minutes in a single day this quarter,” he said. Q1 ended Sept. 30. It added more than 100 “new capabilities” to Teams in the past six months, “including breakout rooms, meeting recaps, shift scheduling and large-scale digital events up to 20,000 participants,” said Nadella. CTA picked Microsoft last week as its “cloud platform" contractor to run CES 2021 as a virtual event (see 2010190043).
CTA doesn’t “anticipate needing any further extensions” of the Patent and Trademark Office’s deadline for filing a statement of use (SOU) in the association’s application for the NEXTGEN TV logo as a certification mark on ATSC 3.0-compliant TVs, emailed Brian Markwalter, senior vice president-research and standards. CTA was granted a six-month extension last week to April 21, and is entitled to four more (see 2010230046). The original SOU deadline “was around the same time that compliant TVs with the logo were entering the market,” Markwalter said Monday. “Now that compliant TVs from multiple manufacturers are in the market and the logo is clearly in use, CTA is in the process of filing the appropriate SOU with evidence of use in commerce.” PTO requires SOUs before issuing registration certificates to prevent applicants from intentionally hoarding trademarks.
Advanced Micro Devices set quarterly records in Q3 notebook PC processor unit shipments and revenue as “OEM sell-through doubled year over year,” said CEO Lisa Su on a Tuesday investor call. More than 105 AMD-based notebook models have launched in 2020 “as we expand our presence in segments like gaming, commercial and education, where we have traditionally been under-represented,” she said. “The PC market environment is strong. If you look at all the work-from-home, schools-from-home trends, I think that has certainly helped this year.” But “as we look into the first half of the year, it's a little bit early to be specific about 2021,” she said. As it reported Q3, the company announced it's buying Xilinx for about $35 billion in stock.
Corning is among tech companies benefiting from coronavirus-fueled demand. Q3 sales in Corning’s specialty materials business were $570 million, up 23% from the 2019 quarter, “in sharp contrast” to declining smartphone shipments, said Chief Financial Officer Tony Tripeny on a Tuesday call (login required). Ceramic Shield cover glass sales to Apple for the iPhone 12 helped drive the increase, he said. Ceramic Shield is exclusive to Apple, said Corning CEO Wendell Weeks. “They helped us develop it” and invested in U.S. manufacturing for it at Corning’s plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, he said: “That’s theirs.” Sales in Corning’s display-glass business were $827 million, up 10% sequentially, said Tripeny. “It appears that the impact from COVID-19 has been a positive. In developed markets, consumers are prioritizing in-home entertainment. Globally work and study from home trends are growing.” The glassmaker expects a “really solid” Q4 in notebook PCs and large-screen TVs, said Weeks. “We’re off to a really good start this month.” Corning’s consumer tech business segments “continue to flash green,” he said. “The global uncertainties just remind us to be very humble in our ability to precisely predict the future, and exactly how our customers are going to work their way through this uncertainty.”
Apple intentionally embedded iOS version 13 last year with a “consuming code” for “its own undisclosed purposes and its own benefit,” causing iPhone users to deplete their monthly data allowances without their knowledge and face “exorbitant” overage fees from their carriers, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Saturday in U.S. District Court in San Jose that seeks class-action status. “Apple has the ability to correctly identify and account for all mobile data usage by its numerous operating system features,” said the complaint. The iPhone maker instead “tried to hide the massive data usage” by “miscategorizing it in a way that many users would not discern,” it said, in violation of California consumer protection and unfair competition laws. “Apple knew what it was doing, and it tried to keep users from discovering the amount of money Apple was costing them. Apple also deliberately withheld from users the ability to control the costs.” The suit identifies the potential class as all who installed iOS 13 on their iPhones before Apple released version 13.6 in June, eliminating the consuming code. Apple didn’t comment Monday.
Sony Electronics wants broadcasters to use their new ATSC 3.0 opportunity to begin beaming 4K programming with HDR over the air, Nick Colsey, vice president-business development, told the prerecorded ATSC broadcast conference Monday during the virtual NAB Show New York event. Broadcasting in 4K HDR will “make the biggest difference” in sowing 3.0 consumer adoption, he said.