Marvell Technology CEO Matt Murphy is optimistic on 5G even as his company is working to avert the worst effects of chip shortages. The global semiconductor supply chain clearly “was not completely prepared for the surge” in COVID-19-induced demand across most “end markets,” he said on a fiscal Q4 call Wednesday. The supply chain “needs time to increase capacity,” and the “supply gap” seems likely to persist “at least” through Marvell’s fiscal year ending January 2022, he said. The chipmaker downplayed its revenue growth outlook for fiscal Q1 ending late April. It's forecasting $800 million, plus or minus 5%, which would mean flat sequential growth at the midrange. The stock closed 12% lower Thursday at $40.10. Marvell’s “growth initiatives” in 5G and cloud helped drive a 24% revenue increase in its networking business for Q4 ended Jan. 30, said Murphy. “We delivered our sixth straight quarter of sequential revenue growth” in 5G, “driven by standard and semi-custom product shipments to Samsung and Nokia,” partially offset by a decline in application-specific 5G ICs “as deployments in China take a pause,” he said. Factoring out the “typical lumpy nature of individual regional rollouts,” said Murphy, 5G infrastructure deployments “are expected to continue to strengthen worldwide.” That the recently concluded first phase of the FCC C-band spectrum auction was the “highest grossing” in the U.S. was “a clear indicator of the potential revenue opportunities carriers expect from 5G technology,” he said. “Other regions around the world are also opening up spectrum for 5G services.” Marvell’s open radio access networks platform, launched in December, has Facebook and Fujitsu as customers, he said.

Global smart speaker unit shipments reached a record 150 million in 2020, largely on new models from Apple, Amazon, Google, Alibaba and Baidu for the holidays, said Strategy Analytics Wednesday. Component shortages hurt the category in Q4, and stock supplies will remain tight through early 2021, said analyst David Watkins.

January semiconductor sales increased 13.2% globally from a year earlier to $40 billion, and were up 1% sequentially from December, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Monday. “Global semiconductor production is on the rise to meet increasing demand and ease the ongoing chip shortage affecting the auto sector and others, and annual sales are projected to increase in 2021,” said SIA CEO John Neuffer. Year-on-year sales in the Americas were up 15.4% in January, second only to Asia Pacific (up 16%), said SIA. Month-on-month sales were down 3% in the Americas and 1% in Japan but up by single digits in all other regions, it said.

The California Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act “could mark the beginning of a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation” in the U.S., reported Vizio’s initial public stock offering registration Monday. "CCPA has prompted a number of proposals for federal and state privacy legislation that, if passed, could increase our potential liability, add layers of complexity to compliance in the U.S. market, increase our compliance costs and adversely affect our business.” Vizio has “historically maintained,” and consumers have come to expect, “extensive backward compatibility for our older products and the software that supports them, allowing older products to continue to benefit from new software updates,” said the IPO. “In the near term, this backward compatibility will no longer be practical or cost-effective, and we may decrease or discontinue service for our older products.” 2020 profit soared 344% to $102.5 million on an 11% revenue gain to $2.04 billion. Vizio shipped 7.1 million smart TVs last year, up 20%. The company pulled an earlier IPO when it signed a 2016 deal to be bought by LeEco for $2 billion. The agreement later fell apart.

Best Buy tempered expectations after a 13% year-on-year sales increase, to $16.9 billion, in the quarter ended Feb. 1 (see Q4 materials here). The retailer didn’t give customary full fiscal year guidance because of pandemic uncertainties, but “planning assumptions” are for comparable sales of minus 2% to 1% higher, said Chief Financial Officer Matt Bilunas on a Thursday call. While demand for technology remains at “elevated levels,” uncertainty about administration of vaccines and shopping patterns makes predictions difficult, Bilunas said. Online sales grew 89.3% to $6.7 billion, said CEO Corie Barry. Headcount dropped 17% to 102,000, she said. Best Buy is partnering with Microsoft on healthcare initiatives, said Bilunas. Barry cited growing opportunities in 5G, beyond smartphones, noting customers can schedule consultations with a Best Buy adviser while shopping at Samsung.com. Shares closed down 9.3% at $102.94.

A 125-watt flash charger and 65-watt wireless charger were among products on display at Oppo’s booth at Mobile World Congress Shanghai Wednesday, said the company. The 125-watt flash charger can pump a 4,000 mAh phone battery to 100% in 20 minutes, Oppo said. The 65-watt AirVooc wireless flash charger can charge the same battery in 30 minutes, it said. It also showed future wireless charging technology that delivers up to 7.5 watts of charging power using magnetic resonance at distances up to 3.9 inches.

Global 5G subscriptions are expected to triple, reaching 2.1 billion in 2024, reported the Norwegian personal finance website Aksje Bloggen Wednesday. North America is the second-largest region for 5G adoption, behind Northeast Asia, with 60 million subscriptions in 2021. “This figure is forecast to hit 276 million by 2024, a 360% increase in three years.”

Wireless charging company WiTricity raised $18 million in funding from iPhone co-inventor Tony Fadell’s Future Shape venture capital firm and other private investors, it said Tuesday. That adds to October's $34 million infusion. WiTricity also announced that Fadell joined its recently launched advisory board. “With the global standard set for [electric vehicle] wireless charging, and automaker launches imminent, wireless charging should become a primary feature of EVs coming to market in the next design cycle,” said WiTricity CEO Alex Gruzen.

Ericsson launched three new radios in its massive multiple-input, multiple-output portfolio and expanded its radio access network compute portfolio, said the company Monday. “After the first rollouts of 5G networks, now is the time to scale up 5G by leveraging Massive MIMO to a much larger extent,” said Per Narvinger, head-product area networks.

It’s too early to say what will “formally define” 6G wireless, but Qualcomm Technologies “will be there just like we’ve been for every mobile technology leap as we continue to drive longer-term research across core wireless disciplines and a growing mix of adjacent technologies,” blogged Vice President-Engineering John Smee Monday. It’s working to enable 5G for “a broader set of industries” beyond mobile broadband, he said. Qualcomm R&D teams expanded their over-the-air test beds to “support enhanced and new features” in industrial and automotive applications,” he said. It continues to “optimize” 5G for industrial IoT, such as supporting ultra-high reliability communication and time-sensitive networking, he said. Qualcomm will show at this week’s MWC Shanghai for the first time “how sidelink communications between devices can deliver broader coverage and higher capacity for IIoT applications,” he said: It’s showcasing how sidelink can complement “wide-area 5G” for advanced automotive applications, such as navigation based on high-resolution 3D maps.