The U.K. and the U.S. will agree on the best approach to Huawei, President Donald Trump said Tuesday at a news conference after meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Experts say the U.S. will get limited support from other countries for its campaign against the Chinese equipment maker (see 1905290036). “We’re going to have absolutely an agreement on Huawei and everything else,” Trump said: “We have an incredible intelligence relationship and we will be able to work out any differences.” He says sanctions against Huawei could be part of trade negotiations with China (see 1905240038). Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned European nations on Huawei. “Those comments would appear to undermine the arguments that Secretary Pompeo has been making about Huawei,” Zack Cooper, China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told us. “This is reminiscent of the tough stance that the Trump administration took against ZTE, only to see the pressure taken off by the president. I think many observers will expect a similar dynamic to occur on Huawei, if a U.S.-China trade deal is eventually negotiated."

Canalys expects 2019 smartphone shipments to decline 3.1 percent to 1.35 billion, a downgrade necessitated by trade "uncertainties" including the Trump administration's May 15 executive order on Huawei. The forecast assumes stringent restrictions will be imposed on Huawei, after a 90-day reprieve, and will have a “significant impact on the company’s ability to roll out new devices short term, especially outside of China.” Canalys said Huawei is acting to mitigate the effect of component and service supply issues but expects overseas potential to be “hampered for some time.” Market uncertainty is "prompting vendors to accelerate certain strategies to minimize the short- and long-term impact in a challenging business environment, for example, shifting manufacturing to different countries to hedge against the risk of tariffs,” said analyst Nicole Peng: “With recent US announcements on tariffs on goods from more countries, the industry will be dealing with turmoil for some time.” Canalys sees other major smartphone vendors, led by Samsung, having short-term opportunities “while Huawei struggles.” Samsung’s "aggressive device strategy" and ability to ramp production quickly will give it an advantage, but it may “struggle to entirely fill the shortfall,” said analyst Rushabh Doshi, saying other vendors won’t be able to react to new opportunities until late 2019. By next year, most of the major mobile supply chain will have active contingency plans to mitigate Huawei’s decline and be ready for 5G device rollout, Doshi said. Smartphone shipments globally are expected to return to “soft growth” in 2020, rising 3.4 percent to 1.39 billion.

The U.S. temporary general license after it added Huawei to its entity list was “almost no relief” for America's semiconductor industry, which has been hurt severely by the move, said Semiconductor Industry Association CEO John Neuffer. At a Washington International Trade Association discussion last week, Neuffer underscored the importance of the Chinese market to U.S. semiconductor exporters and said the Trump administration should more tactfully negotiate with China. “We would like the U.S. government to better balance its national security concerns with its economic security concerns,” Neuffer said. He said there's an inaccurate perception chipmakers were aided by the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security's temporary move (see 1905290036). “It leaves a major hole for us,” Neuffer said, noting Huawei is one of the “world’s biggest” telecom gear and cellphone providers. “There’s basically no reprieve.” If China’s expected June 1 tariff increase affects U.S. consumer goods including computers and cellphones, which had previously been kept off the tariff lists, Neuffer said his industry will suffer significant losses, partly because China is a large portion of that industry's export market. “Because they are our customers,” Neuffer said, “we will get hit and so will the American consumer.” Neuffer said any U.S.-China decoupling is a “folly,” and the Trump administration’s desire to bring all U.S. supply chains back to the U.S. is “not realistic.” The White House didn't comment Friday.

American Tower agreed to buy Eaton Towers for $1.85 billion. Eaton owns and operates some 5,500 sites in five African markets. The buyer said Thursday it “expects to accelerate new build activity across the region due to expanded relationships with multiple key tenants.” American Tower already owns more than 170,000 communications sites, the company said. “This transaction will significantly augment our existing footprint in Africa and positions ATC to take even better advantage of the growth opportunity in the region as 4G mobile data technology is deployed to serve millions of Africans over the coming years,” said American Tower CEO Jim Taiclet. Eaton Towers says it's a “leading independent pan-African tower company” with tower sites in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso and Niger. The company was founded in 2009.

Best Buy will “actively” engage in helping the Trump administration “continue to minimize the impact of tariffs on U.S. consumers,” said CEO Hubert Joly on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Thursday. There’s “time” for U.S.-China trade talks “to progress before any decision gets made” on the fourth tranche of American tariffs on that country, he said. It's “premature” to speculate about the possible impact of the List 4 tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods because there are too many uncertainties about the threatened duties, he said on his final call as CEO before relinquishing the helm next month to Chief Financial Officer Corie Barry. “One thing is, of course, certain,” Joly said. “The impact of tariffs at 25 percent will result in price increases and will be felt by U.S. consumers.” As List 3 tariffs increased to 25 percent, “the discussion becomes quite different,” said Barry. "There’s a much lower likelihood you could absorb that as a vendor.” At 25 percent, “there will be higher prices for consumers,” she said. It’s “tricky” figuring out how the tariffs “will actually play into the back half” of calendar 2019, said Barry of tranche 3 tariff mitigation. “We did our very best to strategize it, but there’s still a lot of work.” Meanwhile, the retailer bought the Critical Signal Technologies health services company this month to “help scale” its connected-health business. “We’re excited about the prospects of combining CST’s services and relationships” with GreatCall, the connected-health and personal emergency response services business that Best Buy bought last year (see 1808150071), said Joly.

Hiking the third tranche of U.S. tariffs on Chinese products rejuvenated talk inside CTA for challenging the duties in court, said informed people. Days before the increase, the policy talk there was about strategies to lobby Congress for removing the tariffs once a U.S.-China trade deal was in the bag, they said. The List 4 proposal brought new urgency to the litigation chatter, we’re told. At least one holdout on the eight-member executive board opposes taking the administration to court until President Donald Trump has a chance to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, said a CTA member insider. The group hired Akin Gump last fall to draft a complaint challenging the Office of U.S. Trade Representative’s broad authority under the 1974 Trade Act to impose retaliatory tariffs against China without launching a new Section 301 investigation (see 1905170064). CTA tried shopping the complaint around to other trade associations for financial and legal backing, but got no takers, we’re told. The association didn’t comment Tuesday. The U.S.-China trade war caused a fivefold increase in tariffs on tech product imports from 2017 to 2018, said CompTIA Tuesday. “Should a 25-percent tariff rate apply to all tech product imports the costs could run into the tens of billions of dollars.” CompTIA encourages the U.S. and China to “reach a deal that protects American innovation and intellectual property.”

Domain name registries and registrars had until Monday to comply with a new policy for collecting registrants' data that aligns with the EU general data protection regulation (GDPR), ICANN said. Under the interim registration data policy approved May 15, "contracted parties" must continue to put adopt processes consistent with the temporary spec for gTLD registration data, which expired Monday. Once ICANN publishes a registration data policy and formally notifies the contracted parties, they will have the option of using the interim policy, the registration data policy or a mix of both as they prepare for the effective date of the registration data policy, which hasn't yet been set. In the final stage of the process, registries and registrars will have to comply with the registration data policy as of its effective date, which ICANN's expedited policy development process (EPDP) team recommended to be Feb. 29. The board approved most EPDP recommendations, sending two for more consultation with the Generic Names Supporting Organization. In a May 3 letter to ICANN President Goran Marby, the European Commission noted it has "constantly urged" ICANN to come up with a unified model for granting access to registrants' nonpublic personal data to those with a legitimate interest or other legal basis for having the information under the GDPR. Distinguishing between ICANN's purposes for processing personal data and the purposes pursued by third parties such as law enforcement agencies for accessing the data is key, it said.

Chinese online video giant iQiyi began collaborating with carrier China Unicom on rollout of 5G services, and opened a Beijing “innovation showroom” that showcases the “ample bandwidth and minimal latency of 5G to effectively ensure high frame rates,” said CEO Yu Gong on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Thursday evening. “In the future,” 5G will allow users “to enjoy a smoother experience when watching our extensive selection of high-quality video content,” he said. “We believe the Chinese online entertainment industry has entered a new growth space with enormous opportunities for the years to come,” said Gong. IQiyi parent Baidu hopes to expand its “platform reach” to DuerOS smart devices “in home and in auto and out-of-home digital screens,” said CEO Robin Li on a separate call. The artificial intelligence-based DuerOS platform is China’s leading voice assistant, with an installed base of 275 million devices at the end of Q1, a 279 percent increase from a year earlier, said Li. The Beijing internet-tech provider wants to “prepare our users to move from mobile-only to a cross-platform experience, seamlessly crisscrossing back and forth on mobile, in-home and in autos,” he said.

The Eurovision Song Contest is testing ground for Next Generation Audio (NGA) in the MPEG-H format, said the European Broadcasting Union Thursday. Content is being made available to broadcasters for testing via the Eurovision FINE network. NGA is said to deliver an immersive aural experience that can be personalized to any home or portable device. Audio mixers can adjust the relative volumes of the performers, commentary and background ambience or switch between different languages,. Headphone users will be able to experience 3D binaural sound, and those using NGA-enabled sound bars can experience audio “on all sides," it said. The three standardized solutions for NGA are MPEG-H, Dolby AC-4 and DTS-UHD. MPEG-H is the designated ATSC 3.0 audio codec for South Korea, while AC-4 occupies that role for 3.0 in North America.

ICANN's human rights performance is good but could be even better, an internal assessment of its business operations found. Its first human rights impact assessment examined human resources, event planning, procurement and security operations from February to June 2018 through document reviews, interviews with managers, onsite visits and an online staff survey. Overall, the report said, ICANN's processes and policies "cover important human rights issues such as health and safety, non-discrimination, access to remedy, data privacy and working hours and leaves." The physical safety of staffers and event participants is ensured through professionally managed security operations; and public meetings contribute to local economies financially and by providing knowledge and expertise. But the internet body could improve in all four areas by, among other things, establishing better processes to ensure that employees are treated fairly and equally; creating better internal grievance mechanisms and complaint investigation processes; managing human rights risks in the supply chain; and ensuring effective management of human rights considerations in the running of ICANN public meetings. In the year since the review was conducted, ICANN has already made some of the recommended improvements and is working on others, while some weren't suitable to the organization, it said. Chief Operating Office Susanna Bennett will head a team tasked with evaluating and prioritizing relevant recommendations so they can be adopted into ICANN's business culture.