Rebecca Day

Amazon delivery personnel were cited in a Nextdoor New York City community thread this week on growing incidents of package thefts. Thieves are stealing packages from the lobbies and mailrooms of unattended apartment buildings with intercom systems. One community member referenced a person wearing an Amazon vest who was “buzzed in” to a locked lobby by a building resident who assumed it was an Amazon delivery person. Instead, the person “carried all the packages that were in the mailroom out with them.” Another member noted “you can make and buy an Amazon Employee looking vest on Amazon” and gave a link to the page. A third Nextdoor member complained of Amazon employees “banging on doors and yelling” to get buzzed in to make a delivery. “Amazon needs to resolve this because no one should buzz an Amazon employee in except the person expecting a delivery,” he said. Amazon didn't respond to questions.

Dolby expects a low single-digit decline in its Foundational Audio business due to supply chain constraints against last year’s “COVID-driven strength” in TVs and PCs, Colliers analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Monday, after a series of virtual investor meetings with Dolby Chief Financial Officer Robert Park last week. The Foundational Audio business that’s part of “nearly all CE devices” -- including smartphones, PCs, TVs, set-top boxes, digital media players and AV receivers -- fluctuates annually between a low single-digit decline and low single-digit growth given the maturity of several categories, Frankel noted. The Vision/Atmos/Imaging patents portion of the business is in the “early stages of accelerated growth,” he said, citing “broad support” of Vision and Atmos on the streaming content side from Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Comcast, Apple Music, Tencent and others, which drives device makers to add Vision and Atmos on top of core Foundational Audio, “growing the royalty per device.” Dolby has penetrated the 4K TV market, including in aggressively priced private-label brands at Best Buy and Walmart, while Samsung remains the “lone holdout” sticking with its HDR10+ high dynamic range technology vs. Dolby Vision. Colliers sees Dolby.IO as a “game-changer” that expands the company's addressable market and creates a recurring revenue stream, despite short-term headwinds. Frankel maintained a “buy” rating on the company, saying the open question is how long before the mix shifts toward Atmos and Vision, along with some assistance from Dolby.IO, “enable the company to achieve sustainable double-digit revenue growth.”

Out of necessity, consumers became more “channel agnostic” and “digital savvy” during the COVID-19 era, and they got used to it, a Retail TouchPoints virtual webinar was told Monday. Now, retailers have to think about how to continue to engage them differently, said Forrester Research analyst Brendan Witcher.

In what has become a race to be the most sustainable among brands and retailers, companies need to be sure their efforts are seen as authentic, a National Retail Federation webcast was told Tuesday.

The Matter connectivity protocol, expected to launch mid-year (see 2112280033), has been delayed again, this time until fall, blogged the Connectivity Standards Alliance Thursday. The launch was originally slated for 2020 when it was the Connected Home over IP project, led by the Zigbee Alliance. Since then, the Zigbee Alliance rebranded as CSA, and Project CHIP morphed into Matter.

Samsung dipped into the flagship Galaxy S palette for advanced features in its latest Galaxy A series smartphones billed as “accessible to all” in a Thursday online launch event. The phone’s broad feature set -- including “fun” photo editing tools and Samsung’s latest security technology -- is designed to attract a range of users from students to enterprise workers, said Reeve Harde, senior manager-mobile D2C retail.

Consumer tech, retail and media companies are serving up deals and programming for the 68-team NCAA March Madness men’s basketball tournament that begins Thursday at various locations around the country and runs through April 4.

Marking the “grim” two-year anniversary of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay extolled the role retailers played for consumers during the “massive disruption,” while he reined in expectations for 2022. Inflation is expected to “remain higher than previously expected and not to cool down” until the Federal Reserve’s target of 2% is reached “sometime in 2023,” he said on a Tuesday webcast.

LAS VEGAS -- After two years of frenzied demand for residential technology due to COVID-19-inspired focus on remote work and home entertainment systems, it’s unclear how demand will shift as consumers begin spending again on travel and entertainment as pandemic restrictions ease, dealers told us at the ProSource Summit last week.

Summit Wireless changed its name to WiSA Technologies “to reinforce the brand of WiSA for the world and the consumer,” said CEO Brett Moyer Friday on the company’s Q4 earnings call.