Trends forged during the atypical 2020 season for back-to-school (BTS) shopping could have staying power, said Forrester analyst Brendan Witcher on a Monday RetailMeNot webinar. It might seem “a smart thing” to get as many customers into the store as possible, he said, “but that’s actually the wrong move.” Consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic “don’t want to walk into a crowded store,” said the analyst. Employees don’t want to work in a crowded store, either, he noted. Witcher encouraged retailers to publicize their stores’ safety protocols in their marketing messaging. Shoppers are preparing for the BTS season amid overall uncertainty about the virus and school policies, many faced with physical challenges of where to shop and whether they should pick up items in store or have them shipped. Witcher has been recommending that his retail clients put together BTS bundles that make sense for home schooling, “so that no matter where this pandemic takes us, you’re prepared to offer the right kinds of products to your consumers.” A May RetailMeNot survey said BTS spending would be up this year to $532 from an average $507 in 2019. Witcher said families trying to share computers are learning “what it costs to support a child in school who might have to do home or distance learning.” Flash drives, mice and tablets could push tech spending higher, he said. Having multiple alternative shopping options will be especially important this year, said the analyst, noting curbside pickup was the top investment retailers made during the COVID-19 lockdown period. He cited one large retailer that said its pre-pandemic buy online, pickup in store business was 60% of orders. Last week, the retailer reported its BOPIS business is four times that of ship-to-home. Part of that, Witcher said, could be “fear of returning” to a store if a product isn’t what the customer is seeking. Those trends are expected to continue into the holiday season.

The pandemic spurred “historic” growth in demand for most consumer tech products since March, Stephen Baker, NPD vice president-industry adviser, technology and mobile, told the Display Week virtual conference (see 2008030053) in a prerecorded segment streamed Monday. “We’re seeing broad-based growth in the consumer electronics business,” with most categories “doing fabulously,” he said. Demand is growing “in ways that we’ve never seen,” said Baker. “This is a broad and deep growth opportunity across all of the consumer electronics market.” Amid stay-at-home mandates, “tech is no longer a discretionary spend,” he said. “It really is a necessity. More than many, many general merchandise categories, tech demand leverages its strengths in entertainment, in work from home, in education from home.” The momentum is “likely to provide us with some staying power for technology sales, regardless of what the overall economy looks like over the next few quarters.” The “success of online” now is the “biggest story” in consumer tech, said Baker. “We’re here to tell you that in-store has likely passed its peak.” Price and product are now “much more important than place,” he said. NPD estimates consumer tech retail sales grew 24% in Q2, racking up $5 billion in “incremental” revenue, said Baker. “Four of the five busiest non-holiday weeks NPD has ever tracked” came in Q2, he said. The industry did slightly more than $1.75 billion in sales the third week of March when much of the U.S. went into quarantine, he said. “We thought that was an enormous week that would never be repeated. That was one of the smallest weeks we’ve seen in the last four months.”

Apple’s record fiscal Q3 revenue of $59.7 billion, up 11% year on year, was due to a “strong iPhone SE launch,” continued economic stimulus and lifting of shelter-in-place restrictions around the world, said CEO Tim Cook on Thursday’s earnings call. (For quarterly materials, see here.) Growth spanned all regions in the quarter ended June 27. IPhone revenue returned to growth -- up 2% to $26.4 billion, 11% shipment growth to 26.4 million -- but the next-generation iPhone lineup will be delayed, said Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. Last year, Apple began selling the 11 Series in late September. This year, “we project supply to be available a few weeks later,” said Maestri. Other product categories are expected to have “strong year-over-year performance,” he said. Though wearables shipments grew in the June quarter to 6.4 million from 5.5 million, growth slowed, which Cook attributed to store closures during the pandemic. Apple Watch customers like to shop for bands when making a purchase, he said. Subscriptions grew 35 million to 550 million, on target to hit 600 million this year, Cook said. Apple expects a strong back-to-school season and has “some optimism” about the December quarter. “We need to see a vaccine or therapeutic or both, and there's some optimism around that in that particular time frame,” Cook said. “That would boost consumer confidence quite a bit if it began to happen.” The stock, which the company is splitting, closed up 10% Friday at $425.04.

Worldwide smartphone shipments plunged 16% year over year in Q2 to 278.4 million, said IDC Thursday. The “huge” decline was due to a “massive reduction” in consumer spending due to the COVID-19-led global economic crisis, store closures and rising unemployment, said research director Nabila Popal. Phones also competed with other technologies consumers needed during lockdown periods, including PCs, monitors and tablets, she said. With the U.S. down 12.6%, China “fared slightly better” with a 10.3% drop, which “arguably shows some early signs of market recovery,” said analyst Ryan Reith. OEMs are moving more aggressively with 5G portfolios, but consumer demand for 5G is still low, he said.

More than half the canceled Las Vegas conventions “have rebooked for future dates,” MGM Resort CEO Bill Hornbuckle said on a Q2 call Thursday. Those selling products, “whether it's CES or corporate America that comes here,” know they need to “get in front of people," he said. “If you think about the tech companies we host” at Mandalay Bay, the “vast majority” are into “selling something,” and “you've got to do that one-on-one,” he said. That’s why “they're anxious to return,” he said. That venue is where CES customarily holds its media day news conferences; the entire conference was canceled last week (see 2007280034). All MGM properties in Las Vegas are open except for the Mirage, Park MGM and NoMad, said Hornbuckle. COVID-19 "headlines" in Las Vegas “continue to have a meaningful impact on booking trends and cancellations,” he said. “Our visibility is limited to booking windows that are currently less than a week.”

The FCC has little wiggle room to halt any increases to annual regulatory fees due in 2020 for broadcast licensees, Chairman Ajit Pai said in letters to Reps. Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H., and Chris Stewart, R-Utah, posted Friday on docket 20-14. They wrote Pai in a letter dated June 15 urging a halt as a way of helping mitigate business disruption from the pandemic (see 2006150058). Pai said the agency is required to assess fees that equal the amount of funds appropriated, but can offer extended payment terms at nominal interest rates, or Congress could modify the existing statutory language to give the agency the ability to provide extension beyond the Sept. 30 fee-paying deadline.

Prime Day 2020 will be in Q4, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky confirmed on Thursday's Q2 call. It's investing in “meaningfully higher” square footage growth for fulfillment center space, sort centers and delivery stations due to come online in late Q3 into Q4. “We need to build the inventory more for Q4, and we've run out of space,” he said. The company delayed Prime Day from July due to fulfillment constraints created by strong COVID-19-related demand, said Olsavsky. Revenue surged 41% year on year, to $88.9 billion. Results crushed Cowen’s expectations of 36% growth, analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Friday: A doubling of worldwide streaming video hours was primarily on Prime Video adoption. The e-tailer's top priority continues to be COVID-19: social distancing, cleaning and temperature taking, the CFO said. Second is expanding capacity, said Olsavsky, heading into the higher volume second half. “We're not back to where we were pre-COVID,” and won’t be near-term, he said: As the company continues to improve fulfillment, “hopefully, it'll be less noticeable for our consumer base.” The platform also isn't ready to return to one-day shipping, the executive noted.

“Costly insurance scams” loom with rising use of telemedicine sparked by COVID-19, said the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud Friday. It’s warning consumers to steer clear of telehealth visits they didn’t initiate. “Scam artists cold-call people, often seniors,” it said. The callers offer “free telemed exams with a doctor you've never met,” it said. They promise free health benefits in return for giving up “insurance information” or other personal data, it said. “These are ploys to steal your medical identity and falsely bill your insurance.” Report all crimes immediately, it advised.

Nokia took a second-quarter revenue hit of about 300 million euros ($354 million) from COVID-19, but “most of that we expect will be shifted to future periods,” said CEO Rajeev Suri on a Friday investor call. Q2 sales in North America were down 4%, a “better result than the company as a whole,” which had an 11% revenue decline, he said. The U.S. “was unfortunately hit by supply issues resulting from COVID-19,” he said. “There is a considerable amount of activity in the market related to the now-completed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, preparation for the release of additional mid-band spectrum, operators assessing their cloud strategies and more.” Nokia had better than expected results in its 4G LTE business, said Suri. Its 5G SoC “helps us in 4G LTE when we are bidding for these combined deals which have 4G and 5G,” he said. “We haven’t yet felt the impact in any meaningful way from the 5G SoC.” But that will come “in due course,” because there’s a “six-month lag between shipments and actually banking some of the benefits.” The stock closed 7.4% higher Friday at $4.78.

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry sidestepped our questions during her Northern Virginia Technology Council video chat Wednesday (see report, July 30 issue) about how the pandemic was affecting consumer demand for more discretionary tech products like premium TVs. “We haven’t talked about that publicly,” she said. “About a trillion dollars of spend” last year went to sporting events, movies, cruises and vacations, she said. “A minuscule amount of that is being spent right now. Spending is moving into other buckets because of the way we are living our lives. I just think the idea of what might be discretionary and not will evolve over time because we’re living our lives in a way that is completely unique to anything that has come before.”