With Dish Network’s "spectrum portfolio" and “our rural roots,” there’s “certainly an opportunity” for the company to play in “fixed wireless in rural America,” said Chairman Charlie Ergen on a Q1 earnings call Friday. “We’re watching closely what T-Mobile and Verizon are doing,” he said. “I think it’s very creative in terms of what they’re doing. I think there’s maybe other ways to do it, depending on where you are and the densities you have.” Dish thinks the 12 GHz band, flexible use of which is being considered in an FCC rulemaking, is “the ideal frequency” for fixed wireless, said Ergen. “We’re hopeful the FCC will make some rulings on that,” he said. "In a funny sort of way," there may be more "upside" to fixed wireless than "the belief you have in linear TV," he said. Dish lost about 228,000 satellite TV subscribers in Q1, said CEO Erik Carlson on the call. "We still remain focused on acquiring and maintaining long-term, profitable customers, and we continue to play where we're strongest, in rural America, with higher-credit-quality subscribers," he said. Dish has an Analyst Day event scheduled for Tuesday in Las Vegas, its first 5G commercial deployment (see 2205040057).
Top Universal Display executives on a Q1 earnings call Thursday stood by claims they made on their February call that introduction of the first phosphorescent blue emissive OLED commercial products is possible in 2024 (see 2202240001). The company is “on track to meet preliminary target specs with our phosphorescent blue by year-end,” said CEO Steven Abramson.
Dish Network doesn’t think it needs to ask for an "extension” of its FCC deadline to bring coverage of its mobile 5G network to 20% of the U.S. population by mid-June, said Chairman Charlie Ergen on a Q1 earnings call Friday. “We’re still on track” to meet the deadline, he said, conceding “we’re not spiking the football yet.”
Qorvo more than doubled its revenue year over year at Samsung, with growth across multiple product categories, said CEO Bob Bruggeworth on an earnings call Wednesday for fiscal Q4 ended April 2. Qorvo supplies Wi-Fi 6E modules, antenna control, RF power management chips and other components for Samsung’s “mass-tier and flagship 5G smartphone programs,” he said. Qorvo in previous years had been “underrepresented” at Samsung, but now “the combined opportunity extends for years,” he said. Qorvo’s “customer diversification in mobile” affords the company “an expanding set of opportunities as 5G continues to grow,” he said. In support of the Matter connectivity protocol for smart home, “we expanded customer engagements with retail and service providers to integrate Matter into Wi-Fi gateways,” said the CEO. “Matter is an open and universal smart home protocol expected to simplify and accelerate the adoption of seamless and reliable wireless connectivity.”
The U.S.-China competition will be the “geopolitical challenge for this generation,” Cordell Hull, principal at WestExec Advisors, told an online symposium Thursday on Indo-Pacific geopolitics hosted jointly by the Asia programs of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and the Wilson Center. Hull hopes the competition "can be managed,” and that it “doesn’t lead us into places where neither country really wants to go,” he said.
Considering the challenges facing eBay customers globally, “we are pleased with our performance to start the year,” said CEO Jamie Iannone on a Q1 earnings call Wednesday. Revenue in the quarter declined 6% to $2.48 billion.The stock closed 11.7% lower Thursday at $48.04.
Disclosures that Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1, sending the stock plunging more than 35% in a single day last month (see 2204200002), sparked a securities fraud complaint Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that seeks class-action status. Plaintiff Fiyyaz Pirani, as trustee of Netflix shareholder Imperium Irrevocable Trust, accuses co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos and Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann of making “materially false and/or misleading statements" to investors before the April 19 earnings report “because they failed to disclose material adverse information and/or misrepresented the truth about Netflix’s business,” said the complaint. Senior executives “failed to disclose to investors” that Netflix was “exhibiting slower acquisition growth” due to subscribers’ account-sharing and increased competition from other streaming services, it said. “As a result of these materially false and/or misleading statements, and/or failures to disclose, Netflix’s securities traded at artificially inflated prices,” it said. The executives’ “wrongful acts and omissions,” and the “precipitous decline” of the Netflix stock, caused members of the potential class to suffer “significant losses and damages,” it said. Netflix didn’t comment Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco granted Pirani's motion in January 2020 to be made lead plaintiff in a similar September 2019 securities fraud complaint against Slack and its top executives that's still pending.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is opening dockets in each of two 60-day “time windows” for submission of “requests for continuation” of the Lists 1 and 2 Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports by the four-year anniversaries of when each round of duties took effect, says a notice for Thursday’s Federal Register. The tariffs would face possible termination under the 1974 Trade Act if USTR doesn't receive a single continuation request, which trade experts say is extremely unlikely (see 2205030013).
Implied slaps at Netflix and Disney+ as “legacy” streaming services permeated the talk of Paramount Global senior executives during their Q1 earnings call Tuesday, their first since rebranding the company from ViacomCBS. Its signature Paramount+ service added 6.8 million subscribers by the end of the quarter, bringing its installed base to nearly 40 million customers, said CEO Bob Bakish.
Harmonic anticipates losing about $6 million in 2022 revenue by ceasing its video business in Russia due to the war in Ukraine, said CEO Patrick Harshman on a Q1 earnings call Monday. “We expect this Russia gap to be largely filled” by video appliance and streaming “upside” in other parts of the world, where Harmonic is having “stronger than originally forecast demand,” he said. The streaming upside in quarters to come “is due in part to a major new sports-driven win during the first quarter with a Tier 1 streaming media company, as well as continued expansion of livestream and sports delivery for customers that have already launched,” he said.