*By Bridgette Webb*
Turtle Beach is on a roll.
The headset producer unveiled a new line of gaming gear called Atlas that's specifically designed for PC gamers.
"We are doing the same thing in the PC segment that we are doing in the console headset gaming segment for many years," said Turtle Beach CEO Juergen Stark in an interview Thursday on Cheddar. "We've put a lot of effort in making sure the build quality, the audio quality and the mic quality is the best you can get."
The new headset was introduced after the company reported second-quarter results that blew away analysts' expectations. Net revenue, net income, and earnings were higher than any second quarter since the company's 2014 IPO. Turtle Beach reported $60.8 million in revenue for the quarter ー up from $19.1 million the year before.
Stark attributed Turtle Beach's success to cost cutting on one side of its balance sheet and the booming demand for headsets generated by the popularity of battle royale games Fortnite and PUBG.
As promising a year as it's been so far, Stark said international tariffs could hurt sales of the imported Turtle Beach headsets.
"It will effect retail pricing for us, and for everyone in the category if what people are threatening goes through," he said. "I'm hopeful that it doesn't happen, I don't see how increasing the prices for consumers for everything you buy that's electronic is going to help anybody."
When asked how tariffs would affect the price of gaming headsets, Stark offered a matter-of-fact outlook.
"If there is a 10 percent tariff and you are building a product in China, the retail price point is going to go up 10 percent. If it's a 25 percent tariff that's being threatened, the retailer is it going to go up 25 percent."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/turtle-beach-expands-further-into-pc-gaming).
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Cheddar's Hope King looks back at her first trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Self-driving innovators need to earn the trust of drivers ー and that starts with transparency, said Jack Weast, chief systems architect for Autonomous Driving Solutions at Intel. "We feel the industry has a responsibility to be more open and transparent about how the technology works, especially when it comes to decision- making, which is really at the heart of what it means to drive safely," Weast told Cheddar's Tamara Warren from the floor of the CES convention in Las Vegas.
Even creative industries like advertising aren't exempt from advances in technology and automation. "Brand tech" firm You And Mr Jones took a majority stake in Inside Ideas Group, a company that helps brands form their own internal marketing groups.
The future is all-electric ー at least for General Motors, the carmaker's Chairwoman and CEO Mary Barra said on Cheddar Friday. "At General Motors, we believe in an all-electric future," Barra told Betty Liu, executive vice chairman for the New York Stock Exchange, through a special partnership between Cheddar and NYSE. "We believe that's the path forward, and that's why we are dedicating resources to build on the Chevrolet Volt first and second generations, now the Chevrolet Bolt EV."
Is it time for the federal government to hire its own chief information officer? Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) thinks so. He told Cheddar Friday that the recent spate of major data breaches warrant a federal czar to help protect consumers and potentially even levy penalties on companies that don't do enough to safeguard users' information.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Jan. 11, 2019.
Cryptocurrencies and digital assets are ideally left to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Congressman Darren Soto (D-Fla.). "Securities laws can be very intense and hurt the market unless it’s truly a security,” Soto told Cheddar Thursday.
Bitcoin's rebound over the $4,000 mark was short-lived, tumbling on Thursday below the $4,000 price level for the first time since Jan. 6. "I think it is a good chance we are going to retest 3,000 as a low and there is a good chance it will probably break through that ー if it hits that low," said Civic CEO Vinny Lingham in an interview with Cheddar. "The market is definitely trying to find a bottom, and I don't think we've found one yet."
Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm, spoke to Cheddar's Hope King from CES, where Qualcomm is unveiling several new products and initiatives, including A.I.-based infotainment centers for vehicles. But the big story of the year, Amon said, will be the spread of 5G technology, which he expects to be in most major cities and on most new Android devices by the second half of this year.
