On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Huawei enlists the help of French high-end audio maker Devialet to create the Smart X-- a smart speaker offering 360-degree sound and Huawei HiLink smart home control within a sleek cylindrical form factor.

Devialet describes the Smart X as the result of a "first partnership in Asia." It carries high-end internals typical of the French company, including a 60W double subwoofer, speaker active matching (SAM) to eliminate distortion and push-push woofer vibration canceling technology. It also offers wifi and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity for audio streaming and x6 built-in microphones able to pick up voice commands from up to 5m away.

MediaTek readies for the 5G era (and to take on the likes of Qualcomm) with the launch of the Dimensity 1000-- a high-end SoC featuring an integrated 5G modem, together with the latest in Arm CPU cores.

First announced back in May 2019 as simply the "5G SoC", the Dimensity 1000 represents a rebrand ushering "the 5th dimension" in mobile connectivity. It promises the fastest throughput yet, at 4.7Gbps downlink and 2.5Gbps uplink speeds over sub-6GHz networks, and supports standalone and non-standalone (SA/NSA) sub-6GHz networks, as well as multi-node support for every cellular connectivity generation from 2G to 5G. Wireless connectivity also includes Wifi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1+, with 1Gbps throughput in both downlink and uplink speeds.

LG Electronics announces an executive shakeup-- one seeing the promotion of Brian Kwon, head of the Mobile Communications and Home Entertainment wings of the company formerly known as Lucky Goldstar, to CEO.

Other promotions include Park Hyoung-sei as president of the Home Entertainment Company, new Mobile Communications Company president Morris Lee, William Cho in the newly created Chief Strategy Officer position and Chief Financial Officer Bae Doo-yong.

An LG veteran, Kwon has been at Goldstar since 1987. He held a variety of positions, including business planning at LG Wales and head of the monitor division, before promotion to oversee the Home Entertainment Company in 2014. He was born in Busan and received a bachelor's degree from Seoul National University and an MBA from Aalto University, Finland.

According to IDC, global spending on augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) is set to reach $18.8 billion in 2020-- a 78.5% increase over 2019 spending reaching $10.5bn.

Such growth is set to continue throughout the 2019-2023 forecast period, leading to a 5-year CAGR of 77%. Driving the AR/VR market is the commercial sector, with spending share growing from less than 50% in 2020 to 68.8% in 2023. Retail is forecast to spend most on AR/VR ($1.5bn), together with discrete manufacturing ($1.4bn). Fifteen industries are to see a CAGR of over 100% during the 2019-2023 forecast, with securities and investment services (181.4% CAGR) and banking (151.9% CAGR) on top.

Meanwhile 2020 consumer spending will be greater than any enterprise industry at $7bn, but will grow at a much slower pace with a CAGR of 39.5%. Public sector spending should retain a "fairly steady share" of spending throughout the forecast. Commercial use cases account for around 50% of 2020 AR/VR spending, with the top being training ($2.6bn) and industrial maintenance ($1.4bn). Consumer spending, on the other hand, accounts little over 33%, with the public sector making up the balance.