MARINA DEL RAY, California -- Consumers are in the driver’s seat on where and how they watch video, but the landscape is far from settled, said executives at a Parks Associates conference Monday.
Thanksgiving was the most mobile of the high-profile shopping days over the past week, blogged comScore Thursday. Mobile shopping’s share of total digital commerce reached 40 percent on Thanksgiving, continuing a trend from last year, wrote analyst Ian Essling, while in-store traffic on Thanksgiving and Black Friday was down slightly from last year.
Fifty-six percent of Cyber Monday e-commerce site visits came from smartphones and tablets, Adobe reported Tuesday. Total sales were $100 million above its forecast (see 1811260016), at $7.9 billion. Conversion rates from site visits to transactions on Cyber Monday were 3.9 percent for smartphones. Since Nov. 1, $35.7 billion in online sales has come from computers, $17.5 billion from smartphones and $5.3 billion from tablets. Adobe predicts $58.52 billion in online sales through Dec. 31 vs. $50.1 billion for last holiday season. Two-thirds of smartphone owners used their devices to research holiday purchase decisions, up from 63 percent last year, reported the National Retail Federation Tuesday.
A glitch that led to Amazon exposing customer email addresses wasn't a breach of its website or its systems, an Amazon spokesman emailed us Wednesday. “We have fixed the issue and informed customers who may have been impacted,” he said. A technical error caused the website to inadvertently disclose email addresses and names, he said, and Amazon emailed those customers Tuesday informing them of the issue, advising caution. The spokesman didn’t respond to our questions on the number of addresses affected or the cause of the error.
Best Buy's smartphone and PC category slipped a percentage point in share of overall sales mix during Q3 ended Oct. 28, it reported Tuesday. Despite closing 287 Best Buy Mobile stores in the past year, CEO Hubert Joly said, Best Buy is investing significantly in the mobile segment -- including sales associates -- to streamline the buying process along with carriers as part of its Mobile 2020 initiative. Calling that “complex,” Joly said the company has “menu boards” to help consumers compare promotions and plans from AT&T Wireless, Sprint and Verizon. Having all three carriers is an advantage against other third-party retailers, said Joly, acknowledging carriers’ and Apple’s competitive strength in stores. This quarter, it's adding stores to do Apple screen repair as a service differentiator to meet the trend of longer phone ownership, said Mike Mohan, chief operating officer, Best Buy U.S.
Screen-based devices -- ranging from TVs to smartphones -- will be some of the hottest electronics deals this week, with a heavy focus on cellular, according to Black Friday circulars. Carrier deals on iPhones include $200 off the iPhone X on Sprint with activation and a 24-month contract; Verizon is offering $100 off the X generation phones on an upgrade or $300 off a wide range of iPhones and smartphones from Samsung, Google Pixel, LG, HTC and Motorola with a trade-in, 24-month financing and a new line. Walmart’s opening circular page features a generic smartphone display with the retailer’s app, underscoring Walmart’s emphasis this year on mobile shopping. Target's Black Friday preview advertises a $300 gift card with purchase and activation of a Samsung Galaxy S9 or S9+.
Roughly 30 titles with Imax Enhanced digitally remastered 4K HDR content will begin rolling out from studio launch partners Sony Pictures and Paramount in January, said John McDaniel, vice president-business development-ecosystems at DTS parent Xperi, at a New York demonstration Wednesday. Content will be available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and via 4K streaming services, said Bruce Markoe, head-post production. The companies announced plans for the certification and licensing program in September. Studios will determine that and whether to charge a premium for 4K, said Markoe. Asked about a road map for 8K theaters, he cited lack of content and said most movies released today are finished in 2K.
Up next for HDMI 2.1 specifications is gaming, with set-top boxes and others to come later, its New York media event was told Thursday. A Microsoft upgrade for Xbox One X is enabling some features, said HDMI Licensing Administrator President Rob Tobias. The 48 Gbps high-bandwidth fixed-rate link signaling technology, a replacement for transition-minimized differential signaling, is under development, he said, and “toward the end of the pipeline.” HDMI 2.1 semiconductor and IP core technologies have been announced by AMD, LG, Lattice Semiconductor, Texas Instruments and others. The chips are “enablers” for TVs, PCs and set-tops to bring next-generation technologies to market, said Tobias. For 2019, he said “brand-name” HDMI 2.1 SoCs supporting set-tops, streaming media sticks and other products are expected to be announced.
A coming folding phone is "just the beginning" of a product road map that includes rollable and stretchable displays, said Justin Denison, Samsung senior vice president-mobile product marketing, at its event in San Francisco Wednesday. He demonstrated the device open, as a tablet, and then closed as a smartphone “that fits neatly inside your pocket.” The Infinity Flex display was one of four trademarks Samsung applied last week at the Patent and Trademark Office (see 1811050016). Mass production of generation one will begin in coming months, Denison said. The two displays follow users from one to the other in a "continuity mode." Google's Glen Murphy, director-UX, announced Android support, including via application programming interfaces.
Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter advised Pandora shareholders to reject SiriusXM’s September $3.5 purchase offer in an all-stock deal (see 1809240030), after Pandora’s Q3 earnings and its revenue topped guidance of $390 million-$405 million and consensus analyst forecast of $402 million. Pandora's $417.6 million was 16 percent higher than the year-ago quarter.