Best Buy CEO Corie Barry sidestepped our questions during her Northern Virginia Technology Council video chat Wednesday (see report, July 30 issue) about how the pandemic was affecting consumer demand for more discretionary tech products like premium TVs. “We haven’t talked about that publicly,” she said. “About a trillion dollars of spend” last year went to sporting events, movies, cruises and vacations, she said. “A minuscule amount of that is being spent right now. Spending is moving into other buckets because of the way we are living our lives. I just think the idea of what might be discretionary and not will evolve over time because we’re living our lives in a way that is completely unique to anything that has come before.”

Qualcomm is leaving unchanged its pre-COVID forecast that smartphone OEMs will ship 175 million to 225 million 5G handsets this year, said CEO Steve Mollenkopf on a Q2 call Wednesday. Launches across all regions “remain on track,” but “we expect some minor changes to the launch timing and sell-through of certain devices,” said Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala. A "few regions” are experiencing “minor delays” in network deployments, said Mollenkopf. Stay-at-home mandates “highlight the critical role” broadband plays, he noted: The “mission” to deploy “breakthrough wireless technologies like 5G has been reinforced and amplified.” The stock closed 15.2% higher Thursday at $107.19. Global smartphone shipments declined by about 21% in Q2, said Mollenkopf. He's encouraged Chinese smartphone demand recovered “month over month” in Q2 after the “sharp decrease” in Q1 “coinciding with COVID-19 restrictions,” he said. “This provides a basis to model rest-of-world handset demand trends.” Without that rebound, Q2 smartphone demand would have been down 30%, he said. Nearly three-quarters of new smartphone models introduced this year in China are 5G, said President Cristiano Amon: China is poised for “broad penetration."

Some 83% of consumers who use such services had their most recent telehealth visit at least partially paid by insurance, said Parks Associates Thursday. In the past 12 months, 41% of U.S. broadband households used a telehealth service, nearly tripling year over year, it said. The pandemic pushed virtual solutions “to the forefront of healthcare,” said President Elizabeth Parks: Sweeping regulatory changes and changing consumer preferences on remote vs. in-person care created “an enormous shift."

Dolby quarterly revenue may fall 22% year over year on COVID-19 effects including “on production volumes and the worldwide shutdown of the exhibition business,” forecast Dougherty & Co.'s Steven Frankel. Nevertheless, the analyst noted its application programming interface strategy is “beginning to take shape,” citing deployments by SoundCloud and others. Dolby didn't comment Thursday ahead of Monday's report.

Despite being locked out of the U.S. market due to government restrictions, Huawei became the leading global smartphone vendor in Q2, the first quarter in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple led, reported Canalys Thursday. The Chinese tech manufacturer shipped 55.8 million devices, down 5% year on year, overtaking second-place Samsung, whose 53.7 million smartphone shipments plummeted 30%. China has “emerged strongest from the coronavirus pandemic, with factories reopened, economic development continuing and tight controls on new outbreaks,” said the research firm. Analyst Ben Stanton attributed results to COVID-19, saying Huawei took “full advantage of the Chinese economic recovery to reignite its smartphone business.” Samsung has less than 1% share in China, while its core markets -- Brazil, India, the U.S. and Europe -- were hit by the coronavirus. It will be hard for Huawei to maintain its lead long term, said analyst Mo Jia, because major channel partners in key regions, such as Europe, are “increasingly wary” of carrying Huawei devices; they're taking on fewer models and bringing in new brands “to reduce risk.” Strength in China alone “will not be enough to sustain Huawei at the top.”

CEOs think businesses will emerge from the pandemic “using more contract workers and fewer permanent staff,” and videoconferencing will replace much business travel, reported the Conference Board Thursday. It canvassed more than 1,300 CEOs globally, finding only 47% predicting pre-COVID-19 revenue levels return sometime in 2021. Chief executives think the crisis “will compel them to accelerate their digital transformation plans and rethink their business models” but don’t see an urgent need to restructure their supply chains, it said. Flexible work schedules will the biggest change emerging from the pandemic, it said. Permanently increasing the number of employees who can work remotely will be the second biggest.

A record-high 71% of U.S. homes were using content streaming or download services when canvassed July 24-26, said CTA Thursday. Nearly one in 10 booked telehealth appointments or other online health services, it said: “Different types of streaming and download services remain a primary way for households to stay entertained during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as some live sports return to TV, notable new albums drop and exciting video games release.”

“Size and sophistication” of online attacks “has risen dramatically” with the pandemic’s spike in internet traffic, said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton on a Tuesday investor call: “Threat actors” are taking advantage of the “distraction and vulnerabilities created by employees working remotely.” Malware reports to Akamai jumped nearly fivefold in Q2 from the previous quarter, he said. Nearly half the content on a typical website “originates from third parties,” estimated Leighton. “Attackers are embedding malware in this content to steal users’ credit cards and other personal data.” Theft of login credentials “is another growing problem,” he said. “We blocked more than 53 billion credential abuse attempts last quarter, more than four times the number we saw in Q2 of last year.” Demand for the company's media and security services “more than offset” revenue downturns from the travel and hotel industries and other sectors “hit hardest by the pandemic,” said Leighton: Churn “stayed below 1% of annualized revenue.” Chief Financial Officer Ed McGowan estimated Akamai took a $14 million Q2 hit from COVID-19, mainly through “contract restructurings and elevated bad debt reserves.” A 13% revenue gain and 29% profit increase reflected a “continuation of the high traffic levels” on the internet since the onset of the pandemic, said Leighton. Peak traffic exceeded 100 terabits daily, he said. “That’s a lot of traffic.”

The pandemic is creating challenges and “opportunities for us and our industry,” supplying headsets for COVID-19's “hybrid work environment,” said Poly interim CEO Bob Hagerty on a quarterly call Tuesday. “Hybrid working trends are here to stay.” It’s estimated 30% to 40% of employees globally “will continue to work from home, with many adopting a flexible work schedule, splitting their time between the office and home.” The “net effect” is a bigger total addressable market “and a long-term growth opportunity for our company, which we are working aggressively to capitalize on,” he said. Headset demand remains “elevated,” putting stress on Poly’s supply chain, said Hagerty. “Our factory in Mexico is capable of running at full capacity, but we are having to flex our production based on component availability.” The stock closed 17.4% higher Wednesday at $21.89.

Increased "working and schooling from home" due to COVID-19 resulted in a strong PC market in Q2, said Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su on a Tuesday investor call. Desktop processor sales declined sequentially, but AMD had record quarterly unit shipments and revenue in laptop processors. AMD 90 days ago expected COVID-19-related weakness to bring the PC market down in the second half, she said: It’s now expecting PC processor sales will grow. The pandemic increased the “overall” PC market and stimulated a “strong shift from desktop to notebooks,” she said. “The second half will continue to be good for notebooks and PCs overall and that's part of this idea that PCs are now essential.” The stock closed 12.5% higher Wednesday at $76.09.