Sonos has “never seen demand like we’re seeing right now” in its installed solutions business, said CEO Patrick Spence on a Thursday investor call. Demand combined with component constraints resulted in significant product delays in the channel: “Demand continues to outpace what we can ship.”
Rebecca Day
Rebecca Day, Senior editor, joined Warren Communications News in 2010. She’s a longtime CE industry veteran who has also written about consumer tech for Popular Mechanics, Residential Tech Today, CE Pro and others. You can follow Day on Instagram and Twitter: @rebday
ProSource CEO David Workman referenced a “new normal,” on a Thursday state of the business webcast, saying many changes during the pandemic are likely here to stay. ProSource held the YouTube webcast in lieu of the in-person address given at the buying group’s spring summit, which wasn’t held this year due to COVID-19. It plans to return to Las Vegas for the summit next spring and hold an in-person meeting for Pro and Power members in San Antonio in August.
Target shares hit a 52-week high at $219.820 Wednesday after a Q1 earnings report showed comparable sales growth of 22.9%, after 10.8% increases last year. Revenue jumped 23.4% to $24.2 billion, and sales expanded by $6.5 billion in the quarter, for a $1 billion market share gain, said CEO Brian Cornell on the company’s Wednesday earnings call. The stock closed 6.1% higher Wednesday at $219.01.
Quick pairing, virtual remote control and digital keys are among Android announcements at Google’s virtual I/O event this week through Thursday. It's working with carmakers to develop a digital car key in Android 12 that will let owners of select Pixel and Samsung Galaxy smartphones lock, unlock and start a car from their phones, blogged Android Vice President-Engineering Erik Kay Tuesday. It's teaming with BMW and others to enable the feature in upcoming models.
Walmart is continuing its focus on serving customers better by “diversifying the model,” said CEO Doug McMillon on the company’s Q1 earnings call Tuesday. Store remodels, investments in pickup and delivery capacity and sales of Walmart+ memberships led growth initiatives. “We need more capacity to get ahead of demand,” he said.
The cost of hi-res music came down for consumers Monday, with Amazon and Apple announcements that lossless music will be available to users at the price of a standard streaming music subscription. That’s $7.99 for Amazon Prime members, $9.99 for non-Prime users and $14.99 for Amazon’s family plan.
AT&T and Discovery combining WarnerMedia’s entertainment, sports and news assets with Discovery's nonfiction, international entertainment and sports businesses is further validation the world is moving to streaming, said Roku Chief Financial Officer Steve Louden at a Monday investor conference. “Anything that provides further evidence that the other stakeholders in the ecosystem are doubling down on the streaming ecosystem, that’s good for us as the leading streaming platform.” Louden said Roku will continue to engage with the media companies and will be “one of the best distribution partners for the combined entity.”
After agreeing to pay $20 million to settle an FTC complaint last month that the company misused credit reports to help unqualified customers obtain financing for products and services, Vivint is “pleased to put this matter behind us,” said CEO Todd Pedersen on the company’s Q1 earnings call Thursday. Vivint “takes matters of compliance seriously,” said the executive.
Google is “disappointed that Sonos has made false claims about our partnership and technology,” said a Google spokesperson Thursday. Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus told investors on a quarterly call Wednesday that a German court granted Sonos a preliminary injunction against a European Google affiliate for infringing a Sonos patent. The patent enables and controls the transfer of media content from a mobile phone or tablet to one or more playback devices, said Lazarus, a former FCC and media-industry official.
Sports-centric virtual MVPD fuboTV reported 43,000 sequential net subscriber additions in Q1 to 590,430 vs. a loss of 28,000 in largely pre-COVID-19 pandemic Q1 2020, said the company shareholder letter Tuesday. Revenue rose 135% year on year to $119.7 million in the quarter ended March 31. Advertising revenue jumped 206% year on year to $12.6 million; monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) grew 28% to $69.09. Net loss narrowed to $40.7 million from $66.6 million in the year-ago quarter, it said.