Intelsat’s $400 million buy of Gogo's commercial aviation connectivity business (see 2009010001) remains on track for closing by the end of Q1, said Gogo CEO Oakleigh Thorne on a Q3 investor call Monday. The transaction cleared the Hart-Scott-Rodino process and awaits approval from the FCC and Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., plus one foreign telecom regulatory OK, he said. Q3 revenue in Gogo’s commercial aviation business, accounted for as discontinued operations, declined 61% from the 2019 quarter, but was up 34% from Q2. Pfizer’s announcement Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine was found to be more than 90% effective in Phase 3 trials “bodes very well for a rebound of the commercial aviation industry next year,” said Thorne.

The rapid growth of true wireless headphone sales is driving innovation in the hearables category which, enabled by SoC designs, will develop into a platform that’s less dependent on the smartphone, said a Friday SAR Insight report. “Headphones will eventually become separate untethered devices, rather than conduits for other devices,” and increased functionality will lead to new applications in entertainment and healthcare, it said. “We will see much more processing power encapsulated within the headphones than we do now,” said analyst Joe Hoffman. Services that require low latency, such as noise cancellation and wake word identification, will reside in the earbud, while the heavy processing takes place “in a mobile phone or even the cloud.” Much of the headphone ecosystem is in place as consumers have embraced true wireless earbuds and shown a willingness to “talk to their devices with digital assistants,” Hoffman said. “The earbud is a perfect place to install the biosensors for health monitoring applications, with temperature and motion sensing in the ear canal, providing more intimate and accurate detection than on the wrist,” he said.

Acer recorded a 27.3% revenue increase in Q3 from a year earlier, to 8.4 billion new Taiwan dollars ($293.7 million), including a 94.4% Chromebook revenue increase, said the PC vendor Wednesday. Profit of 2.29 billion new Taiwan dollars ($80.1 million) was the highest in nearly a decade.

Q3 revenue in DSP Group’s SmartVoice segment increased 45% from a year earlier and 82% sequentially from Q2, said CEO Ofer Elyakim on a Monday investor call. "Accelerated" demand for devices incorporating DSP’s proprietary voice user interface (VUI) SoC helped drive the segment to record-high quarterly revenue, he said. Interest in VUIs for work-from-home and remote-learning PCs and tablets is “robust,” he said. “We expect this trend to continue as the pandemic lingers.” VUI growth in connectivity products “is felt everywhere as every person needs a screen, whether it's for work, for studying, for any other activity,” he said. “In this market segment, we're seeing a much greater adoption.”

Q3 semiconductor sales increased 11% globally from Q2 and 5.8% from the 2019 quarter to $113.6 billion, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Friday evening. The “solid” Q3 gains reflected “normal seasonal trends and increased demand for semiconductor-enabled products, but significant market uncertainty remains due to the pandemic and other macroeconomic factors,” said SIA CEO John Neuffer. September sales to the Americas rose 20.1%.

Global smartphone shipments declined 1.3% in Q3 to 353.6 million handsets, reported IDC Thursday. Though shipments decreased, the results outdid IDC's forecast of a 9% year-over-year decline, it said. It attributed the improvement to the reopening of global economies as COVID-19 restrictions were gradually relaxed. Though “an element” of pent-up demand fueled market growth in emerging markets like Brazil, India, Indonesia and Russia, “it was mainly the array of heavy promotions and discounts that accelerated growth in these markets," said IDC. The more developed markets of the U.S., Western Europe and China experienced big Q3 declines, it said. Samsung retook global leadership from Huawei with 22.7% share after shipping 80.4 million smartphones in Q3, a 2.9% increase from the 2019 quarter. Huawei’s shipments plunged 22% to 51.9 million handsets, sinking the vendor into second place with 14.7% share, said IDC: “The company continues to face challenges due to the ever increasing impact of the U.S. sanctions.” Wednesday, Sony reported the mid-September termination of image sensor shipments to Huawei would cause operating profit in that sector of its business to plummet for the fiscal year ending March 31 (see 2010280028).

Rent-a-Center’s Q3 same-store sales grew 12.9% from the 2019 quarter due to a 71% increase in e-commerce transactions, said CEO Mitch Fadel on a Thursday investor call. The pandemic “accelerated” the finding that the “digital strategy is the right approach,” he said. The transition to e-commerce is “attracting new customers into lease-to-own,” and they tend to be “a younger demographic,” said Executive Vice President Anthony Blasquez. The supply-chain disruptions in electronics that Rent-a-Center experienced in Q2 improved “sequentially” in Q3, said Blasquez. “We feel like we're in good position to go ahead and meet the demand” for the holiday quarter, he said. Compared with supply-chain conditions in Q4 a year ago, “we're pretty close,” he said.

Nearly six in 10 consumers plan to spend about the same on electronics this holiday season as last year, reported the Conference Board Friday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 U.S. homes through mid-October as part of its monthly consumer confidence survey. It found fewer than a third planning to spend less on electronics and 12.6% planning to spend more, fourth behind toys and games (17.7%), gift cards (15.9%) and sporting goods (13.8%). Consumers are entering this holiday season intending to spend on average about $673, on par with last year’s spending estimate of $675, said the board. “The continued inclination to stay at home will bode well for e-commerce,” it said, as 52% said they plan to make at least half of their purchases online, a 10-point increase from last year. That consumers are entering the holidays with intentions to spend about the same as last year is “relatively good news at a time when consumer confidence remains below pre-pandemic levels, unemployment is elevated, and the economy appears to be losing momentum heading into the final stretch of 2020,” it said. “With COVID-19 cases continuing to rise, retailers should prepare for a surge in online traffic and purchases.”

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.”

IoT has a “long path,” Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle told investors Wednesday, and momentum is “starting to build” in the consumer market. “You are going to continue to see new technologies and new capabilities added,” he said. “Ease of use is also something that must get addressed for it to scale.” Wireless was over two-thirds of Silicon Labs’ IoT business in Q3, helping to drive overall revenue to the high end of guidance at $221.3 million, down from $223 million in the year-ago quarter but up from $207.5 million in Q2. Revenue from IoT products set a record at $133 million, up 16% from Q2, said Chief Financial Officer John Hollister. Customers are moving from separate microcontrollers to connected devices that add wireless or that integrate the two, said Tuttle. The company expects to gain traction in smart home, industrial and proprietary and consumer segments via its Zigbee, Thread and Bluetooth business.