Rebecca Day

CEDIA Expo owner Emerald Holding is expecting 10,000 home technology design and construction attendees and over 300 exhibitors, it emailed Friday, five days before registration begins for the custom electronics industry's Sept. 1-3 annual trade event. The last in-person CEDIA Expo was in Colorado in September 2019, drawing about 15,000 attendees, 10,000 buyers and over 300 exhibitors, an Emerald spokesperson emailed. Last year’s event was canceled due to COVID-19 when the Colorado Convention Center was reserved by Gov. Jared Polis (D) as a temporary medical facility through the remainder of 2020. This year’s Expo is in Indianapolis. “We’re all eager to connect again on a human level and get back to face-to-face events as we celebrate everything we value as a community together again,” said Emerald Group Vice President-CEDIA Expo Jason McGraw. Contracts are still in conversations and exhibitors are “still signing on,” the spokesperson said. The website shows major exhibitors including Control4, LG, Lutron, Samsung, Savant, SnapAV, Sonance, Sonos, Sony and Crestron, which planned to return to CEDIA Expo last year for the first time in five years (see 2005060060) before it was canceled. Brands exhibiting for the first time at CEDIA Expo this year are Hisense, Environmental Lights, Datum Project Processing and Launchpad, formerly Innovation Alley. One attendee's PR representative told us Friday his client's attendance at CEDIA Expo 2021 “is as definite as anything could be these days,” but “if things take a turn, they will take that into consideration.”

Conn’s same-store sales rebounded in fiscal Q1 ended April 30, topping expectations with a 19.4% bump from a year earlier on stimulus-driven consumer demand and a tighter credit strategy, said CEO Norm Miller on a quarterly earnings call Thursday. The same-store sales bounce was 1.8% higher than Q1 two years ago. Retail revenue grew 26.5% to $291.5 million.

Vizio is staying in “close contact" with shippers and U.S. port authorities "to continuously assess the situation and our views are informed by the information they provide,” Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend told us Wednesday. We had asked when Vizio expects an easing of the ports congestion that impeded shipments of its smart TVs from reaching many of their distribution hubs in the first quarter. Vizio expects continued delays to “move some units out of the first half of the year and into the back half,” Townsend told investors May 11 (see report, May 12 issue). Vizio's Q1 smart TV shipments increased 28% year over year to 1.5 million sets despite ports disruptions.

Vizio highlighted gaming features, its first voice remote, desktop mirroring with AirPlay and Chromecast, and smart home control through Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant, in launching its model year 2022 TV and sound bar lineup. For its first voice remote, Vizio partnered with SoundHound and its natural language intelligence technology, Mike Wood, director-product management, told us.

After holding its latest Prime Day event in October due to inventory shortages caused by e-commerce demand during COVID-19, Amazon stuffed this year’s 48-hour sales event into Q2 for the first time. The June 21-22 event will run 48 hours starting at 3 a.m. EDT June 21, with a $10 early incentive for Prime members who shop select small businesses June 7-20, it said Wednesday.

Xperi is targeting the TiVo Stream connected TV platform at Tier 2 OEMs for the U.S. market and other geographies outside North America, CEO Jon Kirchner told an investor conference last week. It’s available now as a dongle that plugs into the TV, and the company is working toward an integrated platform with TV makers for introduction next year.

Stimulus spending, the sustained role of technology and the ongoing shift to hybrid work models caused unexpected gains in Best Buy’s comparable sales for fiscal Q1 ended May 2, said CEO Corie Barry on a Thursday earnings call. Comparable sales grew 37% from a year earlier, led by home theater, computing and appliances.

Amazon's proposed $8.45 billion MGM buy, announced Wednesday, will bolster its proprietary content stash for Prime membership “and support the program's continued expansion,” S&P Global wrote investors Wednesday. Amazon has consistently expanded its Prime subscriptions by more than 30% annually, said S&P: “We believe Amazon will continue to invest in its entertainment offerings and delivery capability to attract new subscribers.” Transaction size is “manageable,” given Amazon's “sizable cash balance” of $73.3 billion as of March 31, it said.

Roku’s dispute with Google over what it calls unfair terms (see 2104260060) for YouTube TV “has nothing to do with an economic deal,” said Roku Chief Financial Officer Steve Louden at a Monday investor conference. “I do get a lot of folks that say is this just another carriage dispute, and it’s very different,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic set new expectations and behavior for the smart home, with more than a third of households having a member working from home and one in five learning from home, said Parks Associates analyst Jennifer Kent, opening the virtual Connections conference Tuesday. Household connectivity usage led to a major increase in demand for broadband coming into the house and on the reliable functioning of the home network, she said.