Europeans Using Multimedia Phones

Europeans who own cell phones equipped with an MP3 player are four times more likely to use their phone to listen to music than their American counterparts, according to a report from market research firm Telephia. The survey found that 14 percent of European wireless subscribers now own a music phone; of these, 36 percent listen to music on their music phones, while the same is true for just 8 percent of Americans with music phones.

"The advanced infrastructure and the higher availability of music-capable devices in Europe are key factors behind the bigger growth in adoption. The U.S. market is still waiting for higher bandwidth networks that would support faster full track music downloads," said Telephia vice president Kanishka Agarwal.

The study also tracked the most popular music phone models, and found the Nokia 6230 leading among Europeans with a 26.6 percent market share, followed by the Samsung SGH-D500 (11.5 percent), Sony Ericsson K700 (9.6 percent), Nokia 6630 (7 percent) and Sony Ericsson K750 (3.7 percent). In the U.S. market, the Motorola V710 led with 22 percent of the market, followed by the Motorola MPX200 (17 percent), Handspring Treo 650 (16.8 percent), Sony Ericsson Z500 (7.9 percent) and Sony Ericsson S700
(7.6 percent).

Digital Talent Demand Exceeds Supply in Asia-Pac

Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul

Mobile Device Market Still Awaiting Recovery

The mobile devices market has experienced three years of unpredictable demand. The global pandemic, geopolitical pressures, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic headwinds have hindered the sector's consistent growth potential. This extremely challenging environment has dramatically affected both demand and supply chains. It has led to subsequent inflationary pressures, leading to a worsening global cost of living crisis suppressing growth and confidence in the sector. In tandem, mobile device industry stakeholders have become more cautious triggering market uncertainties. Mobile Device Market Development Operating under such a backdrop, the development of mobile device ecosystems and vendor landscapes have been impacted severely. Many of these market pressures persisted throughout 2022 and now into 2023, borne chiefly by the smartphone market. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, worldwide smartphone shipments in 2022 declined 9.6 percent Year-over-Year

Open Banking Usage to Grow by 470 Percent

The Open Banking business model has been advantageous for Third-Party Providers (TPPs), helping them to extend their offerings into other areas of financial services with new capabilities. Open Banking is also advantageous for traditional banking institutions, despite the perceived loss of custodianship over their data, by providing greater accessibility to more bank services. Furthermore, Open Banking can help serve Mobile Internet providers that are able to leverage it to create tailored services according to customers’ preferences and/or economic limitations. Open Banking Market Development Since traditional banking services are made more convenient by TPPs via greater data access, customers can proactively manage their finances and shape the development of new financial offerings. This is particularly noticeable in the realm of Digital Payments, where retail merchants and customers transact through eCommerce, which has the greatest number of use cases for Open Banking. These includ

Digital Lifescapes

Search This Blog