Rebecca Day

Online shopping had a 49% year-on-year jump in the days since Cyber Monday, as shoppers look to beat expected shipping cost increases, Adobe Analytics emailed Thursday. Sales have soared even as prices have increased an average 5%-8% from Thanksgiving week, though discounts continue to be strong across electronics (24%), TVs (11%), appliances (16%), sporting goods (16%) and toys (15%), said the data analytics firm.

COVID-19’s closure of theaters in 2020 disrupted Hollywood’s movie release schedule, and with many theater release windows gone for now due to the pandemic, “content producers have the opportunity to go try things in a new way without crashing the system,” said Interpret Vice President Brett Sappington on a Tuesday Brightcove webinar.

After staking a commanding lead in the true wireless earbud category with two versions of in-ear AirPods ($159 and $249), Apple took an old-school turn with Tuesday’s announcement of the $549 AirPods Max over-ear headphones. AirPods Max have an Apple H1 chip built into each ear cup and use “computational audio” from the chips’ 10 audio cores -- capable of 9 billion operations per second -- to provide adaptive equalization, active noise cancellation, a transparency mode and spatial audio, said the company. Adaptive EQ adjusts sound to the fit and seal of the ear cushions by measuring the sound signal delivered to a user and adjusting the low and mid-frequencies in real time, it said. Like competing models, AirPods Max have a transparency mode that allows users to listen to music while hearing the surrounding environment. The spatial audio feature tracks the motion of a user’s head and how the device is paired with the headphones, compares the motion data, and then remaps the sound field so it stays anchored to the device -- even as the user’s head moves, Apple said. It calls the experience “theaterlike” for content recorded in 5.1- and 7.1-channel audio and Dolby Atmos. Automatic switching enables users to take a call when listening to music on a Mac, iPad or iPhone; audio sharing allows two sets of AirPods to share music or content from Apple TV 4K. The headphones can be voice-controlled by Siri. Apple is taking preorders for the headphones, slated for Dec. 15 shipping. It didn’t respond to questions on whether it’s continuing to develop the Beats by Dre headphones line. GlobalData analyst Rupantar Guha said AirPods Max will "substantially tighten [Apple's] grip" on the hearables market and are a direct challenge to audio brands AKG, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Sennheiser and Sony. Previous AirPods benefited from "impressive interoperability" with Apple-branded devices, he said. Apple didn’t respond to questions on whether it’s continuing to develop the company's Beats by Dre headphones line.

Alarm.com will continue to support ADT “if they need us longer than 2023 to activate new subscribers,” said Chief Financial Officer Steve Valenzuela on a Monday investor call, responding to a question on the company’s future relationship with ADT after the August announcement Google invested $450 million in the security company. “We’re excited to continue to work with ADT,” he said, noting Alarm.com and ADT extended their relationship until 2023.

Sidewalk, Amazon's low-bandwidth network enabler, isn't yet live even as Echo smart speaker users saw the feature activated by default on the Alexa app beginning in late November. “We started notifying existing Echo customers with eligible Echo devices that their devices will be a part of Sidewalk and how they can change their preferences before the feature turns on,” an Amazon spokesperson emailed. Customers can update their Sidewalk preferences, including turning off the feature, during device setup or anytime in the Alexa app settings, the spokesperson said.

Respondents in Cowen's November shopping survey were “somewhat negative” about holiday spending, it emailed investors Thursday. Despite the “soft macro backdrop” from COVID-19, e-commerce spending is expected to “rise significantly,” as 59% of respondents said they would bump up their online holiday shopping; 11% planned to spend less online. Survey data aligned with 44% year-on-year e-commerce growth over the Thanksgiving-Cyber Monday shopfest, as reported by the National Retail Federation (see 2012010042). Cowen estimates U.S. Amazon Prime households rose to 73 million in November: Two-thirds of those expect their online holiday shopping to rise year on year, said analyst John Blackledge, noting that Amazon kicked off holiday shopping with its delayed Prime Day event in early October. Amazon is the most popular site, said the survey, with 84% of respondents planning to shop the leading e-commerce site over the holidays, followed by 50% at retailer sites and 21% each for brand sites and eBay. Amazon’s third-party gross merchandise value grew nearly 60% year on year after Prime Day; it topped 60% over the “Cyber 5” shopping period. Some 44% of survey respondents said they planned to start shopping earlier this year, 42% the same as last year, and 14% later. The elongated season is a positive for e-commerce, said Blackledge, noting that consumers who begin buying earlier could end up spending more overall. Sixteen percent expected to spend more, 29% less, and half about the same as last year. Delivery anxiety is a logical driver behind early buying, dating back to longer delivery times early in the pandemic, said Blackledge. About 56% of respondents said they aren’t worried about delivery times, 36% were moderately worried, and 7% “very worried.” Similar percentages played out among Prime members, with 8% very worried.

Though consumers started holiday shopping “earlier than ever,” they’re still waiting to do the bulk of their buying, emailed National Retail Federation spokesperson Danielle Inman. She responded to our question on whether the NRF views this year’s start of holiday season promotions in October as a precedent, or if it was a COVID-19-based anomaly. We also asked if retailers risk consumer burnout if the promotional holiday season stretches over three months. “All indications are that consumers like having more time to shop and to spread out their budget and retailers have adapted accordingly,” she said, noting a gradual shift to a longer shopping season over the past several years. A decade ago, she said, 49% of shoppers started holiday browsing and buying by early November; this year that grew to 59%. She noted the lengthening of Thanksgiving weekend sales -- at one time focused just on Black Friday and Cyber Monday -- to encompass Thanksgiving Day and the week leading up to the holiday. As of early November, consumers had completed about a quarter of their holiday shopping, and by the end of Cyber Monday, they had completed 51% on average, “leaving a great deal of shopping left for December.” In a typical year, she said, “we also see the majority of consumers making their last purchase the week leading up to the 25th.”

Walmart is ditching the $35 free shipping minimum for shoppers in the Walmart+ membership program it launched in September (see 2009010032) as a competitor to Amazon Prime. Beginning Thursday, Walmart is “expanding the benefit list” of the membership -- $12.95 a month or $98 per year vs. Prime’s $12.99, $119 for free one- and two-day shipping. Walmart’s membership doesn’t include video and audio streaming services, unlike Amazon. Walmart said Wednesday the perk is “just in time for the holidays.” Orders placed on Walmart.com and fulfilled by third-party shippers no longer have a purchase minimum for Walmart+ members, a spokesperson told us, confirming elimination of the $35 minimum is a new benefit for Walmart+ members that will continue beyond the holiday season. She clarified that grocery deliveries from Walmart stores remain subject to a $35 minimum. Amazon has a similar stipulation with purchases through Amazon Fresh. Other benefits to Walmart+ are fuel discounts and the Scan and Go feature, which allows members to shop and check out with their phone. Walmart also added locations where members can get fuel discounts.

The number of retail shoppers from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday dropped from 189.6 million in a thriving 2019 to 186.4 million this year, reported the National Retail Federation Tuesday. CEO Matthew Shay cited the early start to the holiday season -- three months long this year vs. the traditional November-December span -- as one factor behind the lower in-store and online traffic during the holiday weekend. Last year’s late Thanksgiving meant fewer shopping days until Christmas, he noted. About 166 million consumers shopped the five-day period in 2018.

Qualcomm executives spotlighted speed in launching the company’s Snapdragon 888 5G chipset at its virtual Snapdragon Tech Summit Tuesday. The 888's third-generation X60 5G modem-RF system offers global compatibility via millimeter-wave and sub-6 GHz across all major bands, it said. During the keynote, Qualcomm demonstrated radio-controlled race cars connected by mmWave to a private 5G network, built with help from Verizon and Ericsson and controlled over 5G using an 888 reference design with the Snapdragon X60 5G modem-RF system. Drivers controlled the cars from over a mile away, viewing live video of the track using the capture capabilities of the platform. Qualcomm builds foundational technologies for smartphones first, then extends them to other growth segments enabled by mobile technology, said Alex Katouzian, general manager-mobile, compute and infrastructure. He referenced always-on, always-connected PCs; extended reality devices; edge/cloud artificial intelligence products; and 5G fixed wireless broadband. The 888 chipset will “triple down” on future computational photography, said Lekha Motiwala, director-product management, describing “gigapixel speed” in the Qualcomm Spectra image signal processor that will capture photos and videos at 2.7 gigapixels per second -- 120 photos at 12-megapixel resolution -- up to 35% faster than the previous generation processor. A new AI engine boasts 26 tera operations per second and a sensing hub with lower-power, always-on AI processing for “intuitive, intelligent” features. The 888's gaming feature delivers an upgrade in graphics processing, Motiwala said. Despite the industry push for affordable 5G smartphones to expand adoption, Lenovo, LG, Meizu, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, vivo and Xiaomi have committed to the Snapdragon 888, which reinforces Qualcomm's strategy for supporting “challenger” vendors looking to compete against Samsung, Apple, and Huawei, emailed ABI Research analyst David McQueen Tuesday. Challenger OEMs will be a "welcome shot in the arm for the high-end smartphones sector, which was at risk of being squeezed owing to the frantic pace of plunging 5G smartphone prices," said McQueen. Introduction of Snapdragon 888-based phones could "delay the onset of a fast-approaching mass market," he said. The choice of 888, the "luckiest combination of numbers in Chinese numerology" could signal Qualcomm's "extending an olive branch to those in the industry caught up in the ongoing China-US trade war," said the analyst.