Rebecca Day

Global supply chain issues and materials shortages continue to have a “direct and indirect impact” on shipments, said Universal Electronics Inc. CEO Paul Arling on a Q4 earnings call Thursday. Q4 sales dropped 7% year on year to $144.9 million, said the company. It swung to a $6.3 million net loss from a $12.2 million year-earlier profit.

U.S. TV sales will remain “below pre-COVID levels” short term, said Roku Chief Financial Office Steve Louden on a Q4 earnings call Thursday. Supply-chain disruptions “will continue to negatively affect the size of the TV market and our player margins,” Louden said. Roku's stock plunged to a 52-week low Friday before closing the day 22.3% lower at $112.46.

The concept of the Matter protocol was hatched in 2019 to address “what comes next” in the IoT to overcome barriers to adoption, growth and use, particularly in the smart home, said Michelle Mindala-Freeman, head-marketing and member services, Connectivity Standards Alliance, on a Parks Associates webinar Wednesday. Release 1.0 of Matter is due midyear.

Consumer demand was strong, and Walmart’s team overcame COVID-19 and supply chain challenges in Q4 FY 2022 to post 7.6% sales growth to $152.9 billion, excluding divestures of the Japan and U.K. businesses, said CEO Doug McMillon on the company’s Thursday earnings call.

Healthcare device company Masimo’s buy of Sound United (see 2202150076) will be an opportunity for future products it’s creating for hospitals, but the immediate benefit will be “beneficial to our push into consumer healthcare,” said CEO Joe Kiani on a Tuesday earnings call.

Shopify grew revenue 41% in Q4 to $1.38 billion on a strong holiday sales season, but it swung to a net loss of $371 million vs. profit of $124 million in Q1 2021, said the company Wednesday. Shares plummeted 16% to close at $142.65 after hitting a 52-week low at $120.

Customer choice is driving subscription and release strategies at HBO Max, said Jason Press, WarnerMedia global executive vice president-direct-to-consumer technology and program management, on a virtual Streaming Media event Tuesday. WarnerMedia continues to experiment with "the right strategy at the right time" after last year releasing feature films theatrically and on HBO Max simultaneously amid COVID-19 theater closures.

Leaning into gaming is key for media companies to reach Generation Z users, said Shobana Radhakrishnan, Google TV senior director-engineering, reviewing streaming media industry trends on a virtual Streaming Media Connect keynote Monday. Some 68% of Gen Z consumers consider themselves gamers, 61% of millennials; that compares with 34% of Gen Xers and 8% of baby boomers, said a slide. Playing games with others and groups is becoming a “natural habit” for the two generations, she said, highlighting Netflix’ nascent move into gaming [see (Ref:2201210003)].

Wedbush modeled Roku player gross margin at minus 25% in Q4 since the streaming platform provider didn’t pass through higher shipping costs to consumers: "Driving active account growth on each unit sale is far more valuable,” analyst Michael Pachter wrote Monday. Wedbush expects platform revenue of $750 million, a 59% year on year increase, on an estimated 3.1 million new users in the quarter. The estimated 16% Q4 subscriber growth is a “significant deceleration” from recent quarters, as Roku’s TV OEM partners “struggled to get TVs to market due to component shortages and supply chain disruption, coupled with consumers spending more time out-of-home as we exited” COVID-19 lockdowns, Pachter said. As the supply chain disruption eases, possibly midyear, Roku’s user growth will “reaccelerate alongside OEM and retailer discounting,” said the analyst. Wedbush expects average revenue per user growth to offset the shortfall in active account growth, “as Roku continues to gain share of digital marketing budgets.” Pachter maintained an “outperform” rating but reset the company’s valuation on “post-pandemic fade.” Roku reports earnings Thursday.

Harman executives previewed new car audio technologies and an edge compute software platform for the automotive market at Thursday's hybrid Explore event from its Novi, Michigan, facility. The company’s Savari Mecwave platform, acquired with the purchase of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications company Savari last month, is the industry’s first multi-access edge computer (MEC) platform that enables carmakers and mobile network operators to deliver ultra-low latency applications and services on an edge computing infrastructure, it said.