Organizations prefer buying from tech firms that “are transparent and proactive” in helping them manage cybersecurity risk, a survey found. Intel hired Ponemon Institute to canvass nearly 1,900 individuals in the U.S., U.K., Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa who are involved in overseeing their organizations’ IT infrastructure security. About three-quarters said it’s highly important that their technology provider offer “hardware-assisted capabilities to mitigate software exploits.” A similar proportion said their organizations are more likely to buy technologies and services from providers that proactively fight security vulnerabilities. Forty-eight percent said their tech providers don’t do this.

Samsung agreed to license Nokia’s video standards patents, said Nokia Thursday. Samsung will make royalty payments to Nokia, but the terms of the agreement are confidential. Nokia didn’t say which video standards are involved, but it’s on record as asserting ownership of H.264 standard-essential patents on HD video (see 2007180001).

The “supply-side push” of 5G devices will help propel global smartphone shipments to 13.9% year-over-year growth in Q1 and 5.5% for 2021, reported IDC Wednesday, forecasting a 3.6% compound annual growth rate for smartphones through 2025. IDC expects 5G-enabled handsets to be more than 40% of volume in 2021, and 69% share in 2025. “Strong performance" in Q4 "led to a huge push from all OEMs to increase production,” said IDC Senior Analyst Sangeetika Srivastava. “Although this may create some temporary challenges in production, we do not foresee any significant gap as the manufacturers successfully cope.”

Samsung’s delay in launching its 2021 foldable smartphones until Q3 will spark an unexpectedly “significant surge” in such shipments August through December, blogged Display Supply Chain Consultants CEO Ross Young Monday. At least three models are expected from Samsung, including “a more aggressively priced version” of its clamshell foldable, he said. “Samsung should drive a lot of volume.” Q4 2020 foldable shipments were up 54% from Q3 and 242% from the 2019 quarter. A 40% year-on-year decline is expected in Q2 2021, but shipments in Q3 and Q4 “should each be up well over 100%,” he said.

Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Sound for smartphones, wireless earbuds and headsets. It combines technologies from the chipmaker’s mobile and audio platforms, delivering “high-resolution, wired quality audio, wirelessly,” it said Thursday. It's for streaming music, communications and wireless gaming. Also Thursday, Amazon Music and Qualcomm announced a curated Snapdragon Sound playlist on Amazon’s premium HD Music service.

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.