Rebecca Day

Combined Xperi-TiVo 2020 revenue grew 21% to $1.15 billion, which “far exceeded” expectations, said Xperi CEO Jon Kirchner on a Wednesday investor call. Q4 revenue was $427.8 million vs. $90.4 million in the 2019 quarter, before the TiVo deal, the company reported.

Pending broad distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccines, retail growth is forecast to surge 6.5%-8.2% to $4.3 trillion-$4.4 trillion in 2021, the highest growth rate since 2004, said National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay on a Wednesday call. The forecast includes store and non-store sales. That follows a strong 2020 for U.S. retail, where sales advanced 6.7% to $4.1 trillion vs. 2019. Retail sales have averaged just under 4.5% growth over the past five years, but the “outlier” 2020 skewed that rate higher, he said. Without 2020, retail sales growth would have been closer to 3.5%.

Spotify announced high-fidelity audio, advertising tools for podcasts and its expansion into 80 countries, adding a potential 1 billion new listeners, on its virtual Stream On event Monday. Spotify HiFi will roll out later this year for Premium subscribers in select markets, said the company, saying it’s one of the features most requested by users.

Companies including Adobe, Arm, BBC, Intel and Microsoft will develop standards to certify provenance of media content, to address disinformation and online content fraud. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity plans an end-to-end, open standard for tracing the origin and evolution of digital content, C2PA said Monday. Member organizations will partner to develop content provenance specifications for common asset types and formats to enable publishers, creators and consumers to trace images, videos, audio and documents, said C2PA. Specs will include defining what information is associated with each type of asset, how that information is presented and stored, and how evidence of tampering can be identified, it said: Collaboration with chipmakers, news organizations, and software and platform companies will enable a “comprehensive provenance standard and drive broad adoption across the content ecosystem.” This builds on recent advances in content provenance, including Project Origin; the Content Authenticity Initiative; and C2PA member Truepic's development of the first native integration of hardware-secured photo capture smartphone technology, C2PA said. "There's a critical need to address widespread deception in online content -- now supercharged by advances” in artificial intelligence and graphics “and diffused rapidly via the internet,” said Eric Horvitz, Microsoft chief scientific officer and Project Origin executive sponsor. Organizations interested in joining can apply at membership@c2pa.org.

Roku active accounts grew by 14 million to more than 51 million in 2020, and streaming hours gained 55%, said CEO Anthony Wood on a Thursday call. It gained 5 million active accounts in Q4, bringing 2020 active account adds to 14.3 million, said Chief Financial Officer Steve Louden. In 2020, 38% of all smart TVs sold in the U.S. were Roku TV models, said the shareholder letter.

Universal Electronics Inc. is having strong uptake of TV remote controls that combine linear TV and streaming channels, said CEO Paul Arling on Thursday's Q4 earnings call. Late last year, the company launched a streaming service controller for Apple TV 4K, geared to MVPDs, that support Apple’s original functionality, including Siri voice control. The remote adds capability that simplifies viewing live content on Apple TV with keys for channel surfing and an electronic program guide, Arling said.

Coming off a record Q4, Walmart executives cited “aggressive” plans for growth in its e-commerce business, omnichannel offerings and expansion into health and wellness and financial services during a Thursday virtual investor event.

CEDIA Expo producer Emerald Holding reported a 73% year-on-year plunge in Q4 revenue, to $12.2 million, and a 65% falloff, to $127.4 million, for pandemic-plagued 2020. Declines were partially offset by claim payments received under the company’s event cancellation insurance policy, said the company Thursday.

Q4 revenue at Shopify spiked 94% to $977.7 million, reported the company Wednesday. At the end of 2020, 1.7 million merchants were selling on the e-commerce platform, generating $120 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), said President Harley Finkelstein on a quarterly call. Total 2020 revenue was $2.9 billion, up 86%.

Garmin quarterly revenue climbed 23% to $1.35 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 26, on pandemic-driven growth in the marine, fitness and outdoor segments, said CEO Cliff Pemble on a Wednesday earnings call. The company had 11% year-on-year revenue growth to $4.2 billion.