Artificial intelligence dominated Samsung’s pre-CES news conference, giving the company’s late-to-the-party Bixby voice engine a starring role in connected homes. HS Kim, consumer electronics division CEO, spoke of Samsung’s expanded ecosystem in the IoT, citing partnerships with Amazon, Bose, Google and Sylvania. On 8K, another focus Monday in Las Vegas at CES (see 1901070063), Dave Das, general manager-consumer electronics product marketing, highlighted AI in smart TVs. AI in the TVs can recognize and upscale any content, Das said. AI will be in Samsung’s new Universal Guide for 2019 for customers to find content, including with Bixby. Started as a voice assistant for Galaxy phones, the virtual assistant will grow as more partners join the ecosystem, said Arvin Baalu, a Samsung Harman vice president. Bixby will let users control vehicles, Baalu said. Jim Elliott, senior vice president-sales and marketing-semiconductors, said Samsung chips will drive the shift in data processing from centralized data centers to edge devices. Samsung earlier announced a partnership with Apple, as did others (see 1901070033).
TV providers are “fast-tracking” new search and discovery products on intense competition and to “maximize viewer engagement,” said Chief Product Officer Simon Adams of Gracenote, which launched such a new product. Recommendation offerings rely on traditional genre descriptors such as action, comedy and drama that lack personalization, Gracenote said Thursday and Adams noted to us: TV content providers are bolstering catalogs of original and licensed TV shows and movies and developing voice-driven capabilities to meet changing technology. Genres have been expanded to include mood, theme, scenario and characters, and structured keyword sets for individual shows and movies describe content in progressively more granular terms.
Apple shares closed down 10 percent Thursday at $142.19 and tech suppliers fell after its rare warning about quarterly results drew tech tariff concerns. CEO Tim Cook cut sales guidance after U.S. markets closed Wednesday to $84 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 29 vs. the $89 billion-$93 billion from November's earnings call (see 1811020043). That's a drop from the year-ago period.
The new year doesn't mean the end of all holiday smartphone-related sales, we found Wednesday. Apple products still are discounted at Best Buy. The iPhone X is available for $50 off with activation. Target continued to promote gift cards for smartphone purchases. It has a $200 card for purchase of the Galaxy S9, S9+ and Note 9. It pushed a $100 gift card for buying an iPhone XS, XS Max and XR with qualified activation. Some deals (see 1812180035) are gone. Amazon raised the price of its Kindle Fire HD 8, slashed to $49 during Black Friday week, back to $79.
ESPN emailed Fios TV customers Wednesday warning they risk losing access to the channel if Disney and Verizon can't come to terms on a new contract when the current one expires New Year's Eve.
Disruption in the video industry requires traditional pay-TV providers address “sacred cows” in a new way, Parks Associates reported last week. MVPDs that rely exclusively on video services through their managed network “will be left behind,” it said. AT&T, Sky and Orange launched online offerings to stay ahead of the market, but service bundle elements also need to evolve, said the researcher. Data services are a critical component of over-the-top video services, said Parks. Operators often bundle OTT services with broadband, giving them an advantage over pure-play OTT services. The mobile bundle needs to expand beyond data, with mobile video being a differentiator and incremental revenue generator, it said. Cord cutters look for a branded OTT video-on-demand experience beyond live TV, making new bundles of separate live and on-demand OTT services compelling opportunities, it said. Traditional MVPDs need flexibility and adaptability of OTT video services to “remain relevant,” offering new features and quickly improving where needed, the firm said. Friday, the American Cable Association and NCTA didn't comment.
Mobile sales of $33.3 billion Nov. 1 until Wednesday lived up to industry predictions. Mobile represented half the number of online transactions, and it's the first holiday season where more than half of shopping visits (58.3 percent) came from mobile devices of any sort, Adobe Analytics reported Thursday. A record $110.6 billion was spent online in the period, up 17.8 percent over the 2017 stretch, the tech tracker said. It forecast $124.1 billion in holiday online spending through Dec. 31.
As the shipping window narrowed for pre-Christmas delivery Tuesday, manufacturers and carriers offered smartphone deals, we found in our review. Samsung stretched free delivery to orders over $50 placed by noon EST Thursday. It's offering up to $300 back for customers buying the Galaxy Note9 on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon networks ($699) and $200 off $799 for T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular customers. The S9 and S9+ also had deals. Target put the spotlight on discounted Apple products, offering a $100 gift card to customers buying the latest iPhone, the XR. Apple didn’t respond to questions on reports of lagging demand for the new model. The gift card requires new line activation and an upgrade on AT&T or Sprint. Verizon offered three promotions, adding six months of Apple Music for free in addition to the Target $100 card. After Amazon last week extended free in-time-for-Christmas shipping to Tuesday, it delayed the deadline to Thursday, it emailed.
Over-the-top video services are the “bull's-eye of where everybody wants to be,” but limited disposable income and the integral role of advertising in financing content must be considered in a “post-merger world,” said John Penney, 20th Century Fox executive vice president-consumer business development and strategic partnerships, at a Parks Associates conference. Addressing AT&T’s Time Warner acquisition (see 1812130004), Disney/Fox assets and Comcast/NBCUniversal, Penney cited a “new balance of power” among studios, distribution platforms and ISPs. Media conglomerates hope to turn themselves into direct-to-consumer media companies to get in on the data trend, Penney said Wednesday in Marina Del Rey, California. The battle for market share by large consumer electronics companies and internet companies will make the home “even more cluttered with devices,” said Penney. Pushing for “reduction in complexity,” he said the living room has become a “rats’ nest of wires and boxes,” some due to competitive dynamics. In addition to Amazon and Google, Apple and Roku are trying to leverage hardware to sell services, creating a “mess” for average consumers who just want to discover content they want to watch and make it all work, he said. That’s a “real disservice to how good this can be,” said Penney, saying OTT “can be a lot better than traditional distribution by broadcast and cable,” but large internet and CE companies “have very little desire to pull together and create a more holistic mechanism for search, personalization and the like.” He said “something’s got to give” because it won’t be possible to make video content and distribution work economically. Penney referenced a comment on a previous panel that the new piracy in TV is shared accounts for OTT. Some in industry hope for relationship breakups so each member of the ex-couple ponies up for a separate paid account, quipped Michele Edelman, Vubiquity executive vice president-marketing.
MARINA DEL REY, California -- U.S. over-the-top content services recently topped 240, said Parks Associates, creating a fragmented space that’s making it increasingly difficult for consumers to discover and find content they want to watch, said panelists at its conference Tuesday.