The recent arguments of 15 tech groups that self-repair or independent servicing of smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices would expose consumers to risk of injury, force public disclosure of manufacturer trade secrets or weaken safeguards against consumer data and privacy breaches were debunked in a May 2021 FTC report to Congress that found “scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications for repair restrictions.” The tech groups including CTA, CTIA and the Information Technology Industry Council wrote New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) with those arguments June 29, urging her to veto the nation’s first digital electronics repair legislation (S-4104/A-7006) after it cleared the New York Assembly on a 145-1 vote more than a month ago (see 2207060004). Hochul's office has said little about the governor's intention to veto the legislation or sign it into law. Consumer tech devices “are at risk of hacking, and weakening of the privacy and security protections of those products,” as the legislation will do, and “will increase risks to consumers,” the tech groups told Hochul. The legislation also provides no protection for consumers and independent repair shops against injury, they also argued. Finally, they warned that providing unauthorized repair facilities and individuals “with access to proprietary information without the contractual safeguards currently in place between OEMs and authorized service providers places OEMs, suppliers, distributors, and repair networks at risk.”

Right-to-repair advocates were caught unaware by a June 29 letter we stumbled on Tuesday in which 15 tech groups urged New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to veto the nation’s first digital electronics repair legislation (S-4104/A-7006), after it cleared the New York Assembly on a 145-1 vote more than a month ago (see 2206030034). Hochul’s office largely has been silent about her bill-signing intentions. "The Governor is reviewing the bill," emailed a Hochul spokesperson Wednesday. Of the 30 state legislatures that considered similar legislation in 2021, no right-to-repair bill has passed and been signed into law, “as states have come to the determination that legislating repair rules for manufacturers created more issues for consumers than answers,” wrote the tech groups, including CTIA, CTA, the Information Technology Industry Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association. The groups are committed to working with Hochul “to promote digital privacy and security, while resisting unwarranted intervention in the marketplace with one-size-fits-all mandates that compromise consumer safety and protection,” they said. R2R advocates expected “something like this had been circulated” in opposition to the legislation, emailed Repair.org Executive Director Gay Gordon-Byrne. She hadn’t seen the letter until we forwarded it to her for comment, she said.

Qualcomm scored “significant” revenue and share gains from 5G millimeter wave in smartphones last year, reported Strategy Analytics Friday. “As the sole provider of mmW-enabled cellular phone chipsets throughout most of 2021, Qualcomm captured most of the additional value generated by 5G mmW components for phones with its mmW transceivers and transceiver modules,” said analyst Stephen Entwistle. MmWave “increased the market for radio transceivers in smartphones in 2021, with Qualcomm capturing most of the value,” said SA. “This did not go unnoticed by Qualcomm’s competitors Samsung and MediaTek.”

For centuries, it has been a “fundamental right of owning something that it is yours -- it belongs to you, and you control what happens to it,” emailed George Slover, Center for Democracy & Technology senior counsel-competition policy, in praise of New York’s passage of the nation’s first electronics right-of-repair legislation (see 2206030034). If a product breaks, “you can get it fixed where you want, or fix it yourself if you can,” said Slover, former Consumer Reports senior policy counsel. “Consumers should not lose this right just because the product now comes with electronics inside it,” he said. The New York legislation “restores that fundamental right of choice to consumers, giving them greater ability to get their electronics-enabled products fixed more conveniently and more affordably,” said Slover. “By opening up the repair aftermarket to competition, it gives independent technicians the opportunity to offer this service to consumers -- just like cobblers and blacksmiths and seamstresses have been able to do."

Foldable smartphone shipments rose 571% globally to 2.2 million handsets in Q1, the third best quarter on record, though units were down 47% sequentially from the record-high 4.2 million units in Q4, reported Display Supply Chain Consultants Tuesday. Samsung continued to dominate the category, but its share fell to 74%, while Huawei’s share jumped to 20%, said DSCC. No other brand had more than a 2% share, it said. Though 2022 will be a challenging year for most display applications, foldable smartphones will see strong growth, said DSCC CEO Ross Young: “We expect a 107% increase in foldable smartphone shipments to over 16M units.”

The global smart TV market will grow at a 16.7% compound annual growth rate to $609.5 billion by 2027, up from $151.8 billion in 2018, said a Thursday Brandessence report. TV makers in the future will focus more on experience design, it said. Price optimization is creating a market for low- and medium-income customers.

Qorvo downgraded its projections on global 5G smartphone shipments for calendar 2022 to 650 million-675 million from 700 million-750 million phones because “we also believe the smartphone market itself is also coming down,” CEO Bob Bruggeworth told a J.P. Morgan investors conference Monday. The company supplies RF components to the world’s top smartphone OEMs, and much of the forecast downgrade “has to do with our customers in China, which is one of the growth areas for 5G,” he said. “Consumer sentiment” for 5G in China has been declining, and the COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and elsewhere “continue all the way up to this day,” he said. The war in Ukraine “also is impacting some of the export market for some of our China based handset customers,” plus that of Samsung, in Eastern Europe, he said. “So when we integrated all that, we felt it was best to bring down our numbers for 5G.” Qorvo views this as a “temporary” lull, said the CEO. “We don't see this as a structural change in our end markets.”

North American smartphone shipments reached 39 million units in Q1 “buoyed by Apple’s strong growth,” said Canalys Thursday. The iPhone 13’s “strong performance” drove a 19% increase to 19.9 million shipments, giving Apple 51% market share in the quarter, said analyst Brian Lynch. With global demand “more uncertain,” Apple shifted more devices back into North America after prioritizing other regions in Q4, allowing it to fulfill more demand and deliver on backorders from the previous quarter, Lynch said. The launch of the latest iPhone SE gave the region's “fiercely loyal iOS users" an affordable option. Though the SE is not mmWave-enabled, carriers’ increasing investments in C-band and sub-6GHz spectrums “will open the door for the iPhone SE’s market growth in the coming quarters,” Lynch said.

Pearl TV and MediaTek are partnering on a "FastTrack to NextGenTV" program designed to seed manufacturer adoption of ATSC 3.0 smart TVs and other receiver devices, said the companies Tuesday. The program gives consumer tech makers “an easier, faster, and more cost-effective process” to introduce 3.0-compatible products via MediaTek’s “reference platform,” which will be pre-certified for compliance with CTA’s NextGenTV logo and other authenticity and security requirements. Pearl thinks the program can “usher in high-volume, low-cost televisions that consumers desire and are buying today, particularly among millennials,” said Managing Director Anne Schelle.

The CTA executive board approved a resolution March 12 that the association “stands with the Ukrainian people and strongly condemns Russia’s tragic and illegal war,” said the trade group Wednesday. “Our thoughts are especially with the 88 people from Ukraine who attended CES 2022 including employees of the 15 Ukrainian technology companies who exhibited,” said the resolution. “This was a record number of companies from Ukraine and speaks to the innovation of the Ukrainian people.” CTA hails the “decisive actions” taken by consumer tech companies that have “voluntarily refused to sell products or make their services available in Russia," it said. "We also recognize technologies such as digital currencies and encrypted messaging platforms that allow Ukrainians to communicate, organize and raise resources as they defend their country.”