The FTC’s amended case against Facebook should survive a new motion to dismiss and go to trial due to solid evidence in the amended complaint demonstrating market power and the rising price of advertising, former FTC officials said in interviews.

Coming off a record Q2, Best Buy upgraded its sales outlook for the rest of fiscal 2022 ending late January, raising its sales outlook to “flat to down 3%” from a “high single-digit decline” from a strong second half in FY 2021. The retailer posted record sales of $11.8 billion for the quarter ended July 31, with comparable sales growth of 20% on strong demand for computing, appliances, gaming, virtual reality and home theater. It had Q2 declines in headphone and mobile phone sales. The stock closed 8.4% higher Tuesday at $121.49.

Recent developments in the smartphone space prompted Display Supply Chain Consultants to upgrade its 2021 and 2022 shipment forecasts on panels for foldable handsets, blogged CEO Ross Young Monday. DSCC raised its 2021 guidance by 14% from previous forecasts to 10.4 million panels, and by 16% to 18.7 million in 2022, he said: “We now see foldable smartphone panels up 220% in 2021 and 80% in 2022.”

Smart home technologies are playing a growing role in creating revenue opportunities for home security dealers, a Parks Associates virtual conference was told last week. Dealers' acquisition costs are rising, and additional services can grow monthly recurring revenue, said President Elizabeth Parks. The average monthly monitoring fee for a basic system without security cameras or home control is $40.17; the average monthly fee for an interactive system with home control is $55.44, she said.

Consumers are overloaded with content, and it has become difficult to manage, said TiVo executives on a Thursday webcast for the company’s biannual video trends report, based on a Q2 survey of 4,500 respondents 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada.

Applied Materials posted record quarterly revenue of $6.2 billion, up 41% year over year, despite having to navigate “a challenging supply environment,” said CEO Gary Dickerson on an earnings call Thursday for fiscal Q3 ended Aug. 1. The COVID-19 “pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of the economy and the adoption of advanced technology, creating a permanent structural shift for the industry,” but it also “disrupted global supply chains and logistics,” he said.

There’s a steady recent uptick in the volume of Section 301 complaints at the U.S. Court of International Trade, but lawyers with active cases told us they're not sure if that’s to do with Friday’s two-year anniversary of the Federal Register notice on Aug. 20, 2019, that put the List 4A tariffs into effect on Sept. 1, 2019, on goods from China. All the roughly 3,800 complaints (and counting) inundating the court seek to vacate the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs and get the money refunded on grounds that the duties are unlawful under the 1974 Trade Act and violate 1930 Administrative Procedure Act protections against sloppy rulemakings.

After repeated failure to “develop innovative mobile features,” Facebook “resorted to an illegal buy-or-bury scheme to maintain its dominance,” alleged the FTC Thursday in an amended complaint in its antitrust case against the company in docket 1:20-cv-03590. The commission 3-2 authorized filing of the complaint with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

A recent FCC auction of construction permits for radio stations in which none of the four AM permits that are up for grabs sold isn’t a positive sign for AM but doesn’t mean there’s no interest in the band, radio brokers and broadcasters told us (see 2108130049). “We have some folks looking into buying us right now,” said Christine Wood, program director and part owner of WFLO(AM) Farmville, Virginia. “It’s a reflection on the overall challenges of AM,” said radio broker Mark Jorgenson.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington set a Sept. 30 deadline for Apple to complete production of some 1.5 million documents DOJ requested in its antitrust case against Google in docket 1:20-cv-03010 (in Pacer) (see 2107300035).