Rebecca Day

Store traffic returned to Target "in droves" in Q2 as comparable store sales grew 8.7% from Q2 2020, the company reported Wednesday. Overall comp sales growth of 8.9% was driven by traffic, which had a 12.7% year-on-year increase, said CEO Brian Cornell on an earnings call. Digital comp sales growth slowed to 10% from 195% in pandemic-led Q2 2020.

CEDIA Expo lost its largest exhibitor Tuesday when Creston joined the growing list of companies pulling out of the Sept. 1-3 show in Indianapolis, due to the pandemic. “In light of the re-escalating COVID health crisis and the spread of the Delta variant, we have made the difficult decision to fully cancel our presence at this year’s CEDIA Expo, including our booth, dealer trainings, press engagements, and social events,” said a memo scheduled to go out to dealers Wednesday. Noting it has been six years since the company attended the custom integration industry’s top trade show, the company said it had been “eagerly anticipating the opportunity to connect with dealers and show off" its latest Crestron Home developments. "Despite our enthusiasm and our investment in the show, however, recent news has forced us to reassess the risks.” Noting it’s unclear how the spread of the delta variant will progress in the coming weeks, “our primary concern is and always will be the well-being of our employees, their families, and our industry partners and friends,” said the company. “We had hoped the 2021 CEDIA Expo would represent a much-needed reinvigoration of our industry. It may still -- but with so much uncertainty, we felt a responsibility to decide our plans sooner rather than later so that partners and peers had actionable information.” John Clancy, executive vice president-residential, told us last week (see 2108130068) the company had all intentions to exhibit because “a lot changed” since 2015, and the company was unable to attend last year’s show that was canceled due to COVID-19. Crestron had taken the largest booth at the 2021 show, partly due to accommodations for COVID-19. The company was requiring employees attending the show to be vaccinated and had mapped out a booth flow that would encourage social distancing. Other high-profile vendors withdrew from the show over the past week, including Samsung Savant, Snap One, Sonos, Sony, Sound United and Legrand AV (see 2108160047).

Walmart executives touted in-store shopping, its “modernizing” fulfillment operations and growing advertising business, on a Tuesday earnings call. Revenue grew 2.4% to $141 billion for the quarter ended July 31 on a 2.2% bump in sales to $139.9 billion. Comparable sales grew 5.2%, it said. Average ticket slipped 0.8% vs. growth of 27% in the year-ago quarter.

With just two weeks before education and certification classes are due to begin at CEDIA Expo 2021, with exhibits to follow Sept. 1-3, Samsung and Sony cemented their withdrawal from the show Monday. "The health and safety of our employees and the public is our top priority," emailed Samsung Monday. "Due to the recent rise of infection rates, we have made the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting in-person at this year’s CEDIA Expo." The company will connect with industry partners directly in coming weeks to share its latest products and programs for the channel, it said.

Sound United and Sonos joined the ranks Friday of exhibitors pulling out of CEDIA Expo due to concerns over the COVID-19 delta variant. James Krakowski, Sound United vice president-commercial operations, told us Thursday the company was fully expecting to exhibit at the Sept. 1-3 show in Indianapolis “until last week” when infection rates across the country escalated, causing the company to put plans on pause. Friday, he told us he informed Expo owner Emerald that Sound United would pull out of CEDIA completely “due to the safety of my employees and their families.”

Despite an order backlog situation caused by industry-wide component shortages that it expects to stretch into FY 2022, Sonos raised full-year revenue guidance for FY 2021, in its Wednesday fiscal Q3 earnings report. Guidance is now $1.69-$1.71 billion, for 28%-29% year-on-year growth, vs. previous guidance of $1.62 billion-$1.67 billion. Revenue for the quarter ended July 3 rose 52% to $378.7 million.

Samsung turned up the dial on incentives for its latest foldable phones Thursday, promoting a mileage deal with Delta that earns frequent flyers six miles per dollar spent on preorders of the Galaxy Z Fold3 5G or Z Flip3 5G. Delta customers can get up to $200 instant credit toward add-ons and up to $800 trade-in credit through Aug. 26, it emailed Thursday. In a pitch to its e-commerce customers, Samsung promoted the $200 instant credit offer for preorders, an extra $100 on top of the “highest instant trade-in offers” and a price of $899 or $25.01 monthly over 36 months, for the Z Fold3. The instant credit would make the latest Galaxy Buds2 free with money to spare, the company noted. An iPhone 12 Pro Max had an estimated trade-in credit of $750 Thursday at Samsung.com, the Galaxy Z Fold2, $900; Google’s most recent flagship phone, the Pixel 4, had a trade-in value of $200. Additional discounts up to $135 are available for educators, first responders, government and the military, said the website.

FuboTV shares rose 11% Wednesday to close at $31.82 after Q2 revenue and subscriber numbers were well above projections. The virtual MVPD raised full-year revenue guidance by 15 percentage points at the midpoint to $560 million-$570 million, a 116% increase vs. 2020, and end-of-year subscriber count to 910,000-920,000, a 67% bump. Q3 revenue is estimated to be $140 million-$144 million, with an end-of-quarter subscriber count rising 79% to 810,000-820,000.

Samsung championed openness, innovation and partnerships on its Wednesday virtual Unpacked 2021 event introducing the latest generation of foldable Galaxy smartphones, smartwatches and earbuds.

The Wireless Speaker and Audio Association’s focus shift last year from the technical standard to a consumer-facing organization is paying off, said Summit Wireless CEO Brett Moyer on the company’s Tuesday Q2 earnings call. Visitors to the WiSA website have grown from 26,000 to 360,000, to what it expects to be 2 million visitors by year-end.