The impact of the U.S. iPhone 12 launch was evident in the Census Bureau’s smartphone import data trends for October, as accessed through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. Apple’s Oct. 23 release of its first 5G-enabled flagship phone helped send October smartphone unit and dollar import volume soaring. The average October smartphone import was more than a third costlier than in September, though all metrics were noticeably lower than those of a year earlier, as 2020 has been a trying year for the category. U.S. importers sourced 17.49 million smartphones from all countries in October, up 17.2% from September but down 22.5% from October 2019, said DataWeb. October dollar imports spiked 59.3% over September's to $5.21 billion but were 24.1% lower than a year earlier. October smartphone imports were worth $298.43 on average, 36.3% higher than in September but 1.9% below the October 2019 average. China was the obvious beneficiary of the October smartphone import surge, with 83% share of all handsets shipped here in the month, compared with only 70.7% share in September, said DataWeb. Apple is known to be sourcing the iPhone 12 from Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory in China's Henan province. The company, notoriously protective of its proprietary sourcing information, didn’t respond to questions. U.S. importers sourced 14.51 million smartphones from China in October, 37.5% more than in September but 19.1% fewer than in October 2019, said DataWeb. The 104.15 million Chinese smartphones shipped here in the first 10 months were 73.4% of all handset imports to the U.S., slightly lower than its 74.3% share in the same 2019 period. China’s October smartphone import spike took a clear toll on Vietnam, which contributed 13.8% of all handset shipments to the U.S. in the month, down from its 23.9% share in September, said DataWeb. Vietnamese unit import volume of 2.41 million smartphones declined 32.3% from September and was down 35.9% from October 2019. Vietnam shipped just under 29 million smartphones to the U.S. in the year’s first 10 months, 20.4% of all handset imports to the U.S. in the January-to-October period, said DataWeb. The country’s significant stature in the smartphone category will bear watching as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative convenes a Section 301 investigative hearing Dec. 29 into allegations of Vietnamese currency manipulation to the detriment of U.S. commercial interests. The threat of possible tariffs on Vietnamese imports looms prominently over the proceeding. Smartphones from China technically remain exposed to the threat of List 4B Section 301 tariffs still on the books, but the Trump administration postponed the List 4B duties indefinitely after reaching the phase one trade deal with China nearly a year ago (see 2001160022).

Picking a vendor to run the digital platform of the virtual CES 2021, culminating in the October choice of Microsoft (see 2010190043), started with about 60 contenders, CTA President Gary Shapiro told us last week. Among the factors, “we went with Microsoft because they had done their own event,” he said of the Microsoft Ignite all-digital conference that debuted Sept. 22. “We actually signed up and watched it” as part of the evaluation, he said. “Microsoft had so many things we wanted, including a production studio, and they obviously know how to do cybersecurity,” said Shapiro. “There was a lot of chemistry.” The deal includes "things they hadn’t done before” such as show registrations and other CES-centric activities, Shapiro said. “There are other companies that were brought in as subcontractors. It’s a pretty complicated relationship.” Shapiro traveled earlier in December to Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters to do “production work,” he said. “Essentially, we’ve gone from producing a physical event to producing a number of TV shows. It’s totally different for us.” CTA is “able to do things” in the digital domain it never would have considered before, including changing the CES show dates six months out, he said, laughing. CTA originally planned to do the virtual show on the same Jan. 6-10 dates as the canceled physical Las Vegas show before moving to Jan. 11-14.

CES 2021 as an all-virtual event has pre-show registrations “into six figures,” CTA President Gary Shapiro told us Wednesday. A stickler for years for physical CES independent attendance audits, CTA has no methodology for measuring or verifying its such digital participation, he conceded. “The challenge that we’re facing is that we’d love to audit that, but there’s no established auditing procedures for doing who attends. We do have a reputation for honesty that’s well-deserved, and we bolstered it by having an independent audit. The numbers should be clean in terms of what we finally get.” CTA originally planned to do the virtual CES 2021 on the same Jan. 6-10 dates as the canceled physical Las Vegas show before moving it to Jan. 11-14.

Qualcomm introduced SoCs designed to provide flexible and cost-effective options for implementing rich audio over a range of true wireless earbuds, said the company Wednesday. The true wireless earbud category is entering a new era that will bring new use cases and features to products in all tiers, said James Chapman, general manager-voice, music and wearables. Use cases made possible by the new SoC are audio sharing from one smartphone to multiple wireless listeners, voice service support, adaptive active noise cancellation, 96 kHz audio resolution and support for Qualcomm’s aptX Voice and cVc echo cancellation and noise suppression technologies. The QCC305x SoCs will also support the forthcoming Bluetooth Low Energy Audio standard and offer improved connectivity and power optimization, said the company.

Gokhale Method received FCC approval for its PostureTracker, a wearable sensor designed to alleviate back pain. The tracker, which comes with a wireless charging pad based on Energous’ WattUp charging technology, is expected to ship in Q1, Energous announced Tuesday. The two sensors charge simultaneously on the pad.

Q4 industry OLED panel revenue will increase 49% sequentially, reaching an all-time high of nearly $12 billion, projected Display Supply Chain Consultants Monday. The iPhone 12's later-than-expected release dates “depressed OLED panel shipment sales in Q3 and accelerated sales in Q4,” said DSCC. Q3 OLED panel revenue totaled $8 billion, down 3.3% from the 2019 quarter, but DSCC’s Q4 OLED revenue forecast of $11.9 billion would be up 46% from Q4 2019. The “pattern” of OLED panel revenue is “heavily weighted by smartphones, by far the largest application” for OLED technology in monetary terms, it said. Q3 OLED smartphone revenue was down 9% from a year earlier with the iPhone launch delay, but a 51% Q4 revenue increase to $9.8 billion is expected.

Hyundai will pay SoftBank $1.1 billion for an 80% interest in mobile robotics firm Boston Dynamics, said the companies Friday. SoftBank will keep a 20% interest through one of its subsidiaries, they said. Hyundai said the acquisition will be “another major step” toward its “strategic transformation” into a smart mobility solution provider. Hyundai “has invested substantially in development of future technologies,” including autonomous driving and vehicle connectivity, it said. The transaction is expected to close by June, said Hyundai and SoftBank.

Twenty-one CES 2021 exhibitors plan half-hour news conferences Jan. 11, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, said CTA’s Media Day schedule released Thursday. Hisense, Intel/Mobileye and Sony have their time slots to themselves, but the others will need to compete with one or two companies with events scheduled concurrently. “Top exhibitors will break news to a media-only audience, just as they would normally do at CES Media Days in Las Vegas,” said CTA. Media Day news conferences at the physical Las Vegas show typically run 45 minutes each, not 30. CES 2021 listed 862 exhibitors as signed on through midday Thursday, up from 806 a day earlier. CTA said 4,400 exhibitors participated in the physical CES 2020 January in Las Vegas.

True wireless designs were 45% of Q3 headphone shipments, but supply side issues with Bluetooth chips inhibited availability of new models, leaving brands to delay product launches until 2021, reported Futuresource. Global headphone shipments grew 19% year on year following two quarters of decline. True wireless featured in most new product launches, covering a range of price points. The $50-$99 segment is “highly competitive and overcrowded,” analyst Adriana Blanco said Tuesday.

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. It didn’t respond to questions on whether it’s continuing to develop the company's Beats by Dre headphones line.