Rebecca Day

MQA Ltd. “could not be happier” for Tidal after the announcement that Square is investing in the high-resolution music streaming service, said MQA CEO Mike Jbara Thursday. “Tidal has been the most innovative streaming service from the start,” said Jbara, and the new structure “equips them and Square to go further faster together.” Tidal is one of a handful of streaming services that supports playback of the Master Quality Authenticated codec. Square announced Thursday it’s buying a “significant ownership stake” in Tidal for $297 million in cash and stock. “Existing artist shareholders will be the remaining stakeholders,” it said, and Tidal will operate independently within Square, alongside the Seller and Cash App ecosystems. Tidal relaunched in March 2015 as an artist-backed alternative to high-profile streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora and is indirectly owned by rapper Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, who will join the Tidal board after the deal is completed. Square CEO Jack Dorsey referenced an intersection between “music and the economy” and said Tidal will “continue to be the best home for music, musicians, and culture.” The deal is expected to close in Q2.

FuboTV is well-positioned with its “lead with sports” strategy and competitive pricing to battle for share among “cord-nevers,” Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Wednesday, after the company’s Tuesday investor webcast. Wedbush expects cord cutting and cord shaving to continue for the foreseeable future, an addressable market at 30 million currently and “likely growing by 3 million per year for the next 10 years."

Roku agreed to buy Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit, including its video automatic content recognition (ACR) and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies, they said Monday: This will accelerate Roku’s launch of an end-to-end DAI solution with TV programmers. Their new partnership will integrate free Nielsen ad and content measurement products into Roku’s platform to advance the Nielsen One cross-media measurement solution, they said. Combining technologies will allow Roku to deliver the benefits of TV streaming advertising to traditional TV, said Louqman Parampath, Roku vice president-product management. The traditional TV ad market is worth tens of billions of dollars, he noted. Measurement of ads and content on Roku devices will “accelerate the path to a single, deduplicated cross-media currency,” said Scott Brown, Nielsen general manager-audience measurement. Bringing dynamic ad insertion to all forms of TV will help monetize the addressable market by “measuring smart TV as a currency, which Nielsen can do at scale,” he said. The transaction is expected to close in Q2. Roku expects 100 employees from Nielsen’s AVA business to join the company.

Savant is using GE Lighting's smart bulb platform to expand the market for tunable lighting, Angie Larson, Savant senior vice president-customer operations, told us Tuesday. Tunable bulbs are available now with a basic app for consumers, Larsen said, but Savant will be "vastly improving" the app experience for retail and dealers in May. Until recently, Larson said, "quality, tunable lighting has been limited to luxury new construction projects," but Savant plans to use the GE Lighting platform to reach consumers who will be able to experience "in-demand wellness benefits while creating vital new opportunities for our dealers.” Larson gave as an example Savant's daylight mode, which aligns lighting automatically with the natural circadian progression based on time of day. The Savant app intelligently adjusts for factors such as geography, time zone and season. To deliver key functionality, including wellness benefits, tunable lighting "must be connected to a smart home ecosystem," she said. The smart home company is one of six lighting companies sponsoring the ProSource Lighting Technology and Learning Center in the Dallas Market Center, slated to open April 1 (see 2103010035). Savant, known primarily as a premium home control brand, bought GE Lighting last year (see 2005270047). At the time, Savant President J.C. Murphy told us GE Lighting would continue to "innovate in the lamp space," and the company would expand the C by GE connected ecosystem at retail. Savant’s expertise “will help us accelerate development for the smart home space," he said. Savant is also talking to the builder community, she said.

Target's revenue soared past expectations, spiking 21% in Q4 to $28.3 billion for the quarter ended Jan. 30, but shares dropped after the retailer declined to provide revenue guidance for fiscal 2021, citing economic and COVID-19 uncertainties. The stock closed 6.8% lower Tuesday at $173.49.

ProSource’s lighting initiative took a back seat to the coronavirus, and the buying group is hoping to get training back on track in 2021 for its custom installer members, Vice President-Business Development Andy Orozco told Consumer Electronics Daily.

Ten years of e-commerce growth happened in 90 days at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, said a Shopify report. E-commerce globally reached an all-time high of 16.4% of total retail sales, driven by older shoppers plus Gen Z and millennial consumers. About 84% of consumers shopped online during the pandemic, it said.

It’s not clear how Energous would be affected by Dialog Semiconductor’s proposed sale to Renesas, announced this month, said Energous CEO Stephen Rizzone on the company’s Thursday earnings call. Dialog owns about 5.2% of Energous’ outstanding common shares and could potentially own 7.1% if it exercised warrants, said Energous' annual report. The acquisition is expected to be completed by year-end. The wireless charging company announced a partnership Thursday to simplify integration of its WattUp RF wireless charging with Thinfilm solid-state lithium microbattery technology in “form-factor-sensitive” applications such as hearables, wearables and connected sensors. It also announced it's working with e-peas to combine the chipmaker's power management IC technology with Energous’ RF technology to support at-a-distance wireless charging applications beyond 1 meter for smart buildings, industrial IoT sensors and retail electronic displays. E-peas’ energy-harvesting and processing are said to give “infinite battery life” to wireless devices by increasing the amount of harvested energy and by “drastically reducing” energy consumption. Eartechnic is using Energous’ wireless charging technology for a new hearing aid design, said Rizzone, and Gokhale Method received FCC approval for its WattUp-enabled PostureTracker wearable. An equine tracker for horseracing using WattUp could reach the market this quarter, "barring any delays." Products coming to market highlight benefits of WattUp including being able to hermetically seal a receiving device, "rendering it watertight," and the ability to charge multiple receiving devices simultaneously with a single transmitter, said the executive. Charging of multiple devices simultaneously "on a single mat or with a single transmitter has been a major challenge for the industry, including many well-known CE companies," said Rizzone, citing efforts with coil-based charging such as Apple's doomed AirPower. Energous' RF-based technology can charge multiple devices, he said. Semiconductor component shortages are a “broadbased issue” affecting potential product rollouts, he said. He also cited pandemic delays. Energous continues to wait for regulatory approval of its wireless charging technology in China, India and Korea. Rizzone believes India will be the first to grant approval, followed by Korea and China. He expressed hope that potentially improved trade relations with China arising from the new administration could accelerate China regulatory approvals. Shares fell 8.8% Friday to $4.36.

Best Buy tempered expectations for FY 2022 after reporting a 12.6% year-on-year sales increase in Q4 to $16.9 billion. Comparable sales growth in the quarter ended Feb. 1 was 12.4%, partially offset by loss of revenue from permanent store closures in the past year, it said. Shares fell 9.3% Thursday to close at $102.94.

Recurring and other revenue at Vivint Smart Home grew 8% year on year to $24.7 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31 on 9% growth in total subscribers, the company reported Wednesday. Per user monthly revenue dropped $6.1 million year on year, it said. The smart home company's direct-to-home business added 14,590 new subscribers in Q4, up 49% from the 2019 quarter; national inside sales grew 22% to 43,964 subscribers, it said. A goal is to boost brand awareness, said CEO Todd Pedersen on an investor call: “We have less than 5% brand awareness in the United States, and we're a company with 1.7 million subscribers and literally no brand awareness.” Revenue outlook for 2021 is $1.38 billion-$1.42 billion with 1.8 million-1.85 million subscribers. Chief Financial Officer Dale Gerard said guidance is cautious due to supply chain concerns. One of Vivint’s competitive advantages is ownership of the technology stack, said Pedersen, listing sales, installation, monitoring, ongoing service, technical support and “the entire feedback loop,” while also integrating with other products such as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Shares closed down 10% Thursday at $17.37