Rebecca Day

Samsung and Sony pulled their floor exhibits from the BrandSource and ProSource annual event that's ongoing in Las Vegas. They cited citing company travel restrictions, said Andy Orozco, ProSource vice president-business development. The group didn't have an estimated number of how many people canceled. Other events including in Washington are being postponed due to the coronavirus (see 2003090062). Stock market volatility from the virus “hasn’t up to this point” affected ProSource members’ businesses, CEO Dave Workman told a news conference Sunday. Purell hand-sanitizer dispensers were everywhere throughout the Venetian conference area. We saw Venetian workers wiping down surfaces and escalator handrails with anti-bacterial cloths. Preregistration was given as 2,900 for the summit.

TCL developed the first rollable, extendable smartphone concept, it announced Thursday. The 9mm rollable AMOLED display uses internal motors to extend a 6.75-inch screen to a 7.8-inch display with a button press. When the phone isn’t in use, a motor-driven sliding panel conceals the flexible display, said the company. The announcement was part of a peek into the electronics company’s design efforts with flexible displays that it expected to show at MWC 2020 in Barcelona last month, before coronavirus concerns forced organizers to cancel (see 2002120065).

NAB will be able to see how several other Las Vegas conventions deal with the coronavirus threat before the NAB Show opens April 18 for five days. Nevada so far has largely eluded the threat, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has reported no trade-show cancellations. The authority runs the Las Vegas Convention Center. LVCC is due to host six trade shows before the NAB Show. “There are no confirmed cases in Southern Nevada,” emailed a spokesperson for the Southern Nevada Health District, which has jurisdiction for Las Vegas. The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services didn’t comment. NAB Show organizers declared Friday their event is “proceeding as planned” (see 2002280068). NAB and other shows linked to the same Feb. 26 open letter from LVCVA explaining coronavirus precautions. Health authorities have not "identified" Las Vegas and its "resort properties" as being "at higher risk," said LVCVA. It's "diligently working" with authorities "to share updates as the health and safety of our employees and guests of the destination remains our utmost priority," it said. "People who have not traveled to an area where the virus is circulating or have not had close contact with a patient who has tested positive for the virus continue to be at low risk for infection," said LVCVA. It didn't comment further Monday.

Energous got regulatory approval in Japan for its wireless charging technology, said the company, leaving China and Korea approvals as remaining hurdles for its global ground plan. Global certification -- and the ability to sell products in North America, Europe and Asia -- has been an important consideration for tier-one opportunities, said CEO Stephen Rizzone on a Wednesday quarterly call. He believes it will complete its global certification path for regulatory approvals this year. The lone item on the market using Energous wireless charging technology is the Delight Oasis personal sound amplification product. Target markets for WattUP technology in 2020 include smart glasses, said Rizzone. Possible expansion markets in 2021 include smartphones, military and public safety, gaming, industrial and commercial IoT, he said: Over time, “regulatory requirements will evolve and be relaxed, as was the case with Wi-Fi.” The company's 2019 revenue was $200,000.

Consumers have a lot of questions about 5G, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry told investors on a quarterly call Thursday. The retailer's product category focus will include foldable smartphones, connected fitness, next-generation gaming consoles and products that leverage 5G networks, she said. Sales of cellphones and other tech products fueled a 2.6% Q4 comparable sales increase vs. the year-ago quarter, offsetting soft sales in gaming and smart home, said management on the company’s call. Domestic online revenue grew 18.7% to $3.42 billion on higher average order values, increased traffic and higher conversion rates, said Chief Financial Officer Matt Bilunas. Online revenue increased to 25.4% of total domestic revenue, up from 21.9% last year, he said.

A Lenbrook executive "could see 5G becoming more common in homes instead of Wi-Fi." That might require systems updates for customers, said Greg Stidsen, director-technology and product planning. Lenbrook's coming digital-to-analog converter/amplifier M33 supports 20 streaming services including high-res offerings from Amazon HD and Tidal, he noted in an interview and media Q&A last week. Production interruptions due to the coronavirus in its China-based supply chain could delay the product's arrival from March to perhaps May, Stidsen told us.

Streaming remains a minority of TV viewing, said Roku CEO Anthony Wood on Thursday's call on Q4. Over the next 10 years, “consumers around the world will choose streaming as their primary way of viewing TV,” Wood said, citing a confluence of consumers, “the biggest names in media,” leading advertisers and global TV brands embracing over-the-top video. By 2024, half of U.S. households will have cut the cord “or never had traditional pay TV,” he said. Roku added 9.8 million incremental active accounts last year, reaching 36.9 million, and streaming hours there swelled by 16.3 billion to a record 40.3 billion, it reported. In 2019, just under one in three smart TVs sold in the U.S. was a Roku TV, placing it as the No. 1 streaming TV brand, said Wood, up from one in four the prior year. Scott Rosenberg, general manager-platform business, said half of Roku users don't have a pay-TV package so are “not reachable through linear television,” and the other half are “very light linear TV viewers.” The company has been able to show advertisers the “vast majority” of Roku viewers aren't reached by linear TV, he said. Pivotal Research recommends investors sell the stock, it wrote them Friday. “All areas of the ecosystem [are] beginning to squeeze Roku.” Analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak noted traditional distributors are attacking the direct-to-consumer aggregation opportunity with free equipment and programming, citing Comcast’s $5 monthly discount on NBC’s Peacock service. Wlodarczak expects all non-virtual MVPD DTC players to follow Netflix’ lead and sign distribution deals with traditional distributors to be bundled into pay-TV offerings, eliminating the need for Roku. Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter sees “tremendous opportunities for revenue growth” at Roku, driven by licensing partnerships, and advertising growth from The Roku Channel and ad VOD partners. Pachter was less sanguine about the company’s road to profitability and said 2020 guidance implies “minimal growth in Player sales in 2020 and at zero margin.” Friday, the stock closed down 6.3 percent at $130.25.

As the list of marquee exhibitors and participants bowing out of MWC 2020 continued to pile up from coronavirus fears, GSMA pulled the plug Wednesday on the mobile industry’s spring launch event in Barcelona (see 2002120041). The show was to have opened Feb. 24 for a four-day run.

Amazon’s $5 monthly Music HD streaming service for Prime members (see 1909190019) is a boon for the premium audio category, said ProSource CEO Dave Workman. The tech giant’s financial muscle positions it well as a long-term high-res audio streaming service vs. smaller streaming audio players trying to crack the U.S. market, he said in an interview Tuesday. ProSource announced it's adding members to the buying group.

Samsung fans expecting Tuesday’s event in San Francisco to reveal a smattering of 5G phones with supercharged cameras, a new and improved foldable model, and stepped-up earbuds weren’t disappointed. The company leapfrogged to the S20 model instead of a sequential follow-on to the current S10 family. Samsung played up partnerships. It highlighted Google Duo integration for video chats; a Spotify association with the streaming music service preinstalled on phones and accessible by the new Galaxy Buds Plus earphones; Bixby integration with Netflix; built-in YouTube Premium; and a gaming partnership with Xbox. The company mentioned its $149 Buds Plus “work seamlessly with iOS” from Apple. The foldables appear to be more durable, after a debacle with Samsung’s initial foray into the form factor. The hinge clicks when it locks in at certain angles in “flex mode.” The Galaxy Z Flip, with a 6.7-inch screen, will be in stores Friday, starting at $1,380. Qualcomm jumped on the S20 reveal, announcing its flagship Snapdragon 865 5G mobile platform is the engine powering the trio of Samsung phones. Snapdragon 865’s image signal processor operates at up to 2 gigapixels per second and enables the phones’ 4K HDR capture and 8K video capture. “Galaxy users will also be able to take advantage of gigapixel speeds to slow things down and capture every millisecond of detail with high-definition slow-motion video capture at 960 fps,” said Qualcomm.