The $199 “entry-level” GoPro Hero action camera, introduced toward the end of Q1, “is selling in line with our expectations, and we are expanding distribution to large retail partners like Walmart and Target" in Q2, said GoPro CEO Nicholas Woodman on a Thursday earnings call. GoPro also is “driving down weeks” of inventory supply, “clearing the way for new, higher-margin products in the second half of the year,” said Woodman. GoPro in Q1 led the U.S. action-cam category at all price points at the retail point of sale, with 86 percent unit share and 95 percent dollar share, said Woodman, citing NPD data. Q1 results were released Thursday after regular U.S. markets closed. GoPro shares closed 9.9 percent higher Friday at $5.45.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau signed a consent decree with Optec Displays ending an FCC investigation into alleged RF violations by the company, which markets LED signs used in digital billboards and other commercial and industrial applications. The FCC determined Opetc was doing so without required equipment authorization, labeling and user manual disclosures in violation of the commission’s rules. Optec admitted violating the rules and agreed to implement a compliance plan and pay a $54,000 civil penalty. “These rules ensure that radio-frequency devices marketed in the United States do not interfere with authorized communications, thereby maintaining network integrity and security and protecting consumers,” said order. The bureau also signed a consent decree with Tradenet Enterprise, alleged to have done similar and agreeing to implement a compliance plan and pay a $15,000 civil penalty.

Seven technology brands landed in the top 25 of Morning Consult's Most Loved Brands 2018, a list based on data from Brand Intelligence that placed Google at number one. Amazon was 4, Sony 7, YouTube 9, Netflix 14, Samsung 9 and Microsoft 25. Rankings were determined based on 250,000 interviews between January and March with a national sample of adults covering 1,000 companies, with the average company surveyed over 12,000 times, it said. Respondents answered broad demographic questions, a battery of political tracking questions and questions about a randomized set of brands covering favorability, community impact and purchasing intent. Maximum margin of error for a given brand was +/- 2 percent.

Apple shares jumped 4.4 percent Wednesday, closing at $176.52 after surprising some analysts with a 16 percent revenue spike to $61.1 billion. Despite an industrywide smartphone slowdown in the China market (see separate report, this issue), Apple’s international sales generated 65 percent of the quarter’s revenue, said the company in its FY 2018 Q2 earnings release, with 20 percent growth in greater China and Japan. IPhone revenue increased 14 percent year on year to $38 billion on a 3 percent bump in units to 52.2 million, said the company. Consumers chose iPhone X “more than any other iPhone each week” in the March quarter, as they did after the launch in the December quarter, said CEO Tim Cook. In response to an analyst’s question on whether iPhone X will be able to retain its $1,000 price point, Cook compared the product to having a team win the Super Bowl: “Maybe you want them to win by a few more points, but it's a Super Bowl winner, and that's how we feel about it," he said, saying he "could not be prouder of the product.” The iPad had a 6 percent year-on-year boost in revenue in the March quarter to $4 billion on a 2 percent unit increase to 9.1 million, said the company. The "other products" segment -- including AirPods, Apple TV, Watch, Beats products, HomePod and iPod touch -- grew 38 percent in revenue to $3.9 billion, it said. Apple’s wearables business is now the size of a Fortune 300 company, said Cook. At $9.1 billion, Apple’s services business led all segments in growth at 38 percent, it said. Crediting tax reform, Cook said Apple is able to deploy its global cash “more efficiently,” and it expects its direct investment in the economy to exceed $350 billion over the next five years, including $30 billion in capital expenditures; it also expects to create more than 20,000 U.S. jobs. The company is narrowing site selection for a new U.S. campus that will be announced later this year, he said.

Sony shipped 12.4 million TVs in the year ended March 31, a 2.5 percent increase from a year earlier, but about 100,000 units shy of its October and February forecasts, the company reported Friday. Sony is forecasting shipments of 11.5 million TVs in the current fiscal year, which would amount to a 7 percent year-on-year decline.

Sonos had no comment to questions about a Wall Street Journal report that it filed an S-1 registration statement for confidential SEC review as the prelude to an initial public offering possibly as soon as June. Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, emerging growth companies (EGCs) may be allowed to confidentially initiate the SEC registration process by submitting a draft registration statement for nonpublic review by SEC staff, according to an IPO playbook linked to on the SEC website. The submission doesn’t need the consent of auditors and doesn’t need to be signed because it doesn’t constitute a filing, said the playbook. An EGC can't begin its IPO road show marketing process until at least 21 days after publicly filing its initial confidential submission and all confidentially submitted amendments, it said. Sonos participated for the first time at the Azione Unlimited spring meeting this week, after being sought “for years” by President Richard Glikes to join the buying group for custom integrators. On what Sonos hopes to get out of joining Azione as a vendor member, a Sonos spokeswoman told us the multiroom wireless music company is committed to building stronger relationships and communication within the AV integration vertical, “and this is just one step in our commitment to the professional residential installer.” The company wants to continue to build strong relationships “and open lines of communications with A/V Integrators and this new partnership is one step along the way,” she said, calling Azione a leading organization in the space. Being a vendor member allows Sonos to “spend more quality time” with Azione dealers, allowing the company to improve relationships and “forge new ones,” she said.

Comcast and Charter Communications formed a 50/50 operating platform partnership back-end development and design system supporting their mobile services, they said Friday. They will collaborate on developing "an efficient and scalable software platform and related backend systems" for their mobile customer sales and support platforms, device logistics and warehousing, and billing. They said the operating platform will be the systems interface for current "and any future mobile virtual network operator ... partners." Charter Chief Mobile Officer Danny Bowman said the work will result in "faster and more cost-effective mobile product and service enhancements." The cable providers said the partnership will use parts of the operating platform Comcast developed for Xfinity Mobile that Charter subsequently modified for its forthcoming mobile service. They said Charter initially will fund the joint venture in reflection of development costs Comcast bore, though the two eventually will equally fund the partnership. The companies said they individually will keep their own relationships with device manufacturers, and all customer-facing activities like market, sales and pricing will be handled individually. The deal demonstrates Comcast and Charter "are serious about mobile," New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin wrote investors. He said the platform could be an interface with future MVNOs that could point to the cable companies contemplating a deeper MVNO with a different wireless provider than Verizon.

Macquarie Research’s Amy Yong raised Sprint's rating to neutral amid reports of renewed merger discussions with T-Mobile (see 1804100047). T-Mobile is partially owned by Deutsche Telekom and Sprint by SoftBank and “the question of who retains control is the biggest hurdle,” Yang wrote investors Wednesday. “SoftBank affirmed that Sprint remains a key asset to its portfolio and that it would want a majority stake.” Last year, talks collapsed because SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son wanted to retain control of the combined company (see 1711080055). For Sprint especially, ‘time is of the essence,” the analyst said. “We believe SoftBank is running out of options.”

AT&T expects to raise between $564 million and $653 million with the initial public offering of its Latin American digital entertainment units, DirecTV Latin America and Sky Brasil, it said Thursday as it launched the IPO. AT&T said in March it was considering an IPO for the Vrio holding company (see 1803070024).

Speculation on Spotify's opening share price was all over the board Monday, before the company's initial public offering takes effect Tuesday, we found. CNNMoney called the Spotify IPO “eagerly anticipated” and “bizarre,” saying, “Nobody knows what the price will be when the stock starts trading.” Business Insider said Spotify is going public at “the worst possible time for tech stocks,” after Facebook’s data collection debacle slammed it and other tech stocks at the end of March, a slide that continued Monday. Shares of Amazon (down 5.2 percent to $1371.99), Apple (down 1.1 percent to $166.68), Facebook (down 2.8 percent to $155.39) and Google (down 2.4 percent to $1,102.63) fell Monday. Brokers have already published Spotify price targets in the range of $160-$225 per share, said reports. Analyst Gary Alexander, in a Seeking Alpha column, wrote that the implied market value of $37 billion-$41 billion is “far higher” than Spotify’s last reported valuation of $19 billion. “Without underwriters to stabilize the offering, Spotify's IPO is likely to be much more volatile than the typical IPO -- either up or down,” he said. Spotify’s direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday could pave the way for other pre-IPO companies to choose a similar alternate route to going public, but the deal carries a “high degree of uncertainty” since 91 percent of the 178 million shares will be set by broker-dealers based on buy and sell orders, said Renaissance Capital IPO Research last week (see 1803300007).