Digital Lifescapes

Incumbent broadband service providers everywhere don't fear each other as competitors -- but there's two industry outsiders that they observe very closely. Google and Apple have a significant competitive advantage in the battle to engage the connected consumer. Why? They've already attracted an army of independent collaborators. Having moved beyond a single product category focus, these new media app competitors operate digital ecosystems where devices, software, services, and creative content -- from hundreds of third-party companies -- combine to create consumer value far greater than is possible from any single product, or company. Currently, over 40 million U.S. broadband households own and operate an Apple device. Google's fast growing ecosystem, based on the Android OS, is expected to double in size over the next five years. "Not long ago devices were independent of services and video content; however, those days are long gone," says Keith Nissen

Voice over IP (VoIP) now has over 120 million subscribers worldwide, and its growth looks set to accelerate as predictions indicate a $40 billion annual VoIP market by 2015, according to the latest market study by Point Topic . Point Topic's data revealed a global growth in VoIP of 12.6 percent during 2010 and shows that there is plenty of headroom left for VoIP around the world. "The growth of VoIP has been bumpy but shows signs of acceleration," said John Bosnell, senior analyst at Point Topic. "VoIP has all the hallmarks of a classic substitution commodity." Referring to the above, for example, consumers are switching from the standard telephone system to an end-to-end IP service that provides voice services at a very attractive cost and adds other usage possibilities. "France has been something of a test-bed for VoIP. Driven by an active supplier base that has made VoIP available to a large percentage of the population over the last decade, the

Latin America outperformed other regions of the world in mobile revenue growth for the period between the first quarter of 2010 to 1Q 2011, according to the latest market study by ABI Research . In terms of total aggregate service revenue, Latin America grew at 17 percent -- while in comparison North America achieved just 8.9 percent growth. The primary ingredient in the region's revenue upside is largely attributable to increased mobile phone service subscriptions and average revenue per users (ARPU). Latin America witnessed an 11.9 percent increase in mobile service subscribers while attaining a 5.9 percent increase in ARPU -- holding 2nd in position behind Eastern Europe, for the same period. Most region's ARPU declined while North America and Western Europe only had meager gains. "Contrary to popular belief, Latin America is the rising star of the telecom market" says ABI research associate Lim Shiyang. "With increasing affluence in Sou

Web-enabled devices have become a key growth segment for the global consumer electronics industry. The smart devices, when connected to the Internet, create opportunities for advertisers to influence people while they are actively searching for visual entertainment content or other information. According to the latest market study by In-Stat, the value of this ad-supported content discovery will reach $2.4 billion by 2015. "When consumers are navigating for content, advertising is not seen as an interruption. In fact, it might help consumers find what they're looking for," says Gerry Kaufhold, research director at In-Stat . Of course, the typical advertising creative process will need to be totally re-imagined -- in order to attain this degree of value or benefit in the eyes of consumers. With the rise of mobile Internet services, the proliferation of smartphones, and the growth of tablet devices, a lot of content discovery engines will work on a mobile device, to

Today's technology-centric business success often hinges on the ability to inform and guide prospective customers who are entering the buying-cycle for complex products and services. However, few marketers have mastered this essential skill -- informing and guiding via digital multimedia content -- in a meaningful way. That said, eMarketer reports that findings from Focus Research indicate business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers are more likely to direct their attention to improving client understanding and retention this year than their business-to-business (B2B) counterparts, who are placing a higher emphasis on filling the sales pipeline. Among B2B marketers, lead acquisition was the top priority for 55 percent of respondents, followed by lead conversion (45 percent). Both B2B and B2C marketers were equally focused on building brand awareness. The inherent complexity of the B2B buying process often requires better sales support tools -- that facilitate and accelerate the

It's been suggested by some pundits that media tablets are negatively impacting the netbook PC market, and that both device types are cannibalizing sales of desktop personal computers. That said, results of a survey of 1,142 consumers conducted by ABI Research in March, 2011 reveal that netbooks and media tablets are comparable -- in terms of consumer interest and demand. In fact, 25 percent of respondents rated themselves as either "extremely" or "very" interested in acquiring a netbook -- while for media tablets, the number was 27 percent. According to ABI's assessment, purchases of these companion devices are likely to result in a prolonged PC lifecycle and thereby delay typical replacement plans. But according to ABI mobile devices group director Jeff Orr, "Nearly half of those surveyed, however, report that they are either 'not very' or 'not at all' interested in purchasing a media tablet. The most common reason for the lac

Without a doubt, 2010 was a challenging year for the worldwide digital set-top box (STB) market, as total unit shipments decreased by 7 percent. It is likely that 2011 will also be a disappointing year, but there may be better news on the horizon. Fueled primarily by the analog-to-digital transition as well as upgrades of older devices to newer HDTV versions, HD and PVR versions, and Hybrid STBs with PVR capability and a broadband connection -- digital terrestrial STB unit shipments will approach 45 million units by 2015, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "Digital set-top boxes continue to be key pieces of equipment for pay-TV service providers. For many service providers, the digital STB functions as their gateway into the home," says Mike Paxton, Research Director at In-Stat. In addition to their important position in the digital TV or pay-TV ecosystem, digital set-top boxes continue to offer an attractive market opportunity for STB manufacturers and s

comScore released results of a U.S. study on mobile advertising, which found that the number of American advertisers using mobile display ad campaigns has more than doubled in the past two years -- with mobile content and publishing accounting for half of all products advertised. "Although mobile advertising is still in its relative infancy, it is quickly gaining importance as new advertisers come into the fold," said Hans Fredericks, comScore vice president. The acceleration of mobile media consumption, driven by adoption of smartphones, 3G/4G networks and unlimited data plans, provides an attractive environment for advertisers looking to reach consumers through a variety of platforms -- including mobile browsers, apps and SMS. In April 2011, 689 advertisers used mobile display advertising campaigns to reach consumers, up 128 percent from two years prior, demonstrating the growing use of the mobile marketing channel for advertisers. An analysis of advertised categor

Some view mobile broadband services as inferior offerings -- due mostly to the low-speed connections and inconsistent coverage. That said, it's often the only available broadband option for many rural locations, and a welcomed additional option to other Internet users around the world. Infonetics Research recently released excerpts from its latest fixed wireline and mobile broadband subscribers market forecast report. The global market has reached a significant new milestone. "As we predicted, mobile broadband subscribers surpassed wireline broadband subscribers in 2010 -- 558 million vs. 500 million," says Stefane Teral, Infonetics Research's principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure. Fixed-line services are not dead, though, especially with China giving a boost to the worldwide wireline broadband base with its massive fiber-based program led by the Chinese government, which has set a 20Mbps benchmark for all broadband subscribers -- where most today

The volatile pay-TV industry is going through a period of transition, as low-cost video entertainment services gain new subscribers -- and thereby further fragment the global markets. As a result, traditional pay-TV service providers are evolving their offerings, which directly impacts their systems and CPE device suppliers. Infonetics Research released excerpts from its first quarter 2011 (1Q11) Cable, Satellite, IPTV, and Over-the-Top (OTT) Set-Top Boxes and subscribers market share and forecast report. "Despite a quarter-over-quarter decline in the global set-top box market, all major segments are up from this time a year ago in both revenue and shipments, indicating that the pay-TV market is rebounding after two years of significant declines," said Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research. In 1Q11, evidence continued to mount that pay-TV service providers are in the early stages of implementing hybrid IP networks that off

To date, the traditional publishing industry has been negatively impacted by the shift from print to online distribution -- it's a disruptive market transition that has been very challenging for the majority of legacy print media companies. Moreover, consumers have resisted paying for most content on the web, and the soft economy has taken a toll on the online advertising-based models that many publishers embraced -- in the hope that it would become a replacement for their declining print revenue. The arrival of eReaders and media tablets comes at an opportune time for publishers. But there's a key question, yet to be answered. Are they fully prepared to embrace the apparent trends in the marketplace and adapt their business models? An accelerated plan of action is essential, not optional. The Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad clearly established new device categories and the customers for these products have responded by buying more digital content. eMarketer estimates th

The mobile device applications market has grown rapidly, as a result of the addition of new products, players, and creative business models. This growth will continue, driven mainly by increased smartphone penetration, as well as growth in consumer mobile application libraries. According to the latest market study by In-Stat, mobile application downloads are forecast to reach nearly 48 billion in 2015. "The prevalence of handset touchscreens is a significant development impacting the mobile applications market," said Amy Cravens, Senior Analyst at In-Stat . The projected rapid penetration of touchscreen-enabled devices will allow more users to easily interact with mobile apps, thereby driving growth. Increased on-board memory capacity will also lead to a better user experience. In-Stat's latest market study findings include: - Touchscreens will account for nearly 90 percent of smartphones shipped in 2011, and will increase to nearly 100 percent in the next seve

Worldwide PC shipments are now expected to grow by just 4.2 percent in 2011 -- down from a February forecast of 7.1 percent -- according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ). A combination of declining first quarter shipments, an increasingly conservative economic outlook, relative saturation among developed market consumers, and competing products will lead to slow growth in 2011 before a rebound in 2012. For 2012 through 2015, growth is still expected to fall in the 10 to 11 percent range. Consumer PC purchases have been a cornerstone of PC growth over the past five years. During this time, a transition to low-cost portables helped drive purchases by new users in emerging markets as well as replacement and secondary systems in more mature markets. Consumer PC shipment growth averaged 18.9 percent from 2005 to 2007, almost 7 percent faster than commercial shipments. During 2008 and into 2009, consumer growth was actually faster at more than 21 p

The mobile phone messaging services market is a significant growth opportunity. According to the latest market study by Portio Research , total worldwide mobile subscribers stood at nearly 5.3 billion at the end of 2010. The upside potential is huge. The subscriber base is projected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.9 percent between 2010 and 2015, reaching nearly 7.4 billion by the end of 2015. The worldwide mobile messaging market was worth $179.2 billion in 2010. This number is forecast to rise to $209.8 billion in 2011, and on to $334.7 billion by the end of 2015 -- at a CAGR of 13.3 percent between 2010 and 2015. The Asia Pacific region generated the highest mobile messaging revenue in 2010 and Latin America produced the least. Among the four mobile messaging services studied, SMS yielded the highest revenue for mobile service providers in 2010, followed by MMS, then mobile Email and finally mobile instant messaging (IM). SMS made the highest contribut

ABI Research surveyed 2024 people in the United States about the consumer electronic (CE) products already in their households (device types and quantity), home networking, and purchase intent (device type, brand, and features critical to the purchase decision). The results of their latest market study are insightful -- regarding the key trends that are shaping the evolving CE marketplace in America. Among the significant top-line results, 24 percent of the respondents indicated that their highest-priority purchases over the next six months would likely be of HDTVs (24 percent) and Blu-ray players (17 percent). About 60 percent of the households surveyed said they already have one HDTV. According to ABI senior analyst Michael Inouye, "As consumers replace older TVs, there really isn't much choice now but to buy an HDTV, so even if the consumer doesn't necessarily want to view HDTV content, that's usually what they end up with. Prices for HDTVs have fallen quite

The first wireless applications likely to adopt Wi-Fi Direct (peer-to-peer connectivity) include mobile PCs, digital televisions (DTVs), and mobile phones. These devices have something in common: they're the respective centers of the PC,consumer electronics (CE), mobile device clusters, and they ship in the hundreds of millions of devices annually. Wireless display of images and video is a major aim of Wi-Fi Direct, so the main display in most homes will be a key target. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , in 2015 nearly 80 million DTVs will be Wi-Fi Direct-enabled. "One significant question surrounding to Wi-Fi Direct is will it ultimately help to increase the penetration of Wi-Fi? The answer is, marginally if at all," says Brian O'Rourke, Research Director at In-Stat. Wi-Fi already has increasing penetration rates throughout PCs, PC peripherals, CE devices, and mobile phones. Moreover, the upside for new applications within smartphones and mult

  Search advertising has the largest share of online adverting in the U.S. market, but display ad spending is gaining share. The steep growth in online video ad spending, combined with solid increases for banners, will help display ads eventually exceed search ad spending. Total online display ad spending -- including online video, banner ads, rich media and sponsorships -- has already brought the category close to the range of investments in search engine marketing. According to the latest market study by eMarketer , this year U.S advertisers will spend $14.38 billion on search ads and $12.33 billion on online display -- that's up by 19.8 percent and 24.5 percent, respectively, over 2010 spending. Display will continue to grow at a faster pace than search throughout the forecast period, and is on track to surpass search by 2015. "The re-balancing of ad budgets across the board, among companies both large and small, national and local, will be pushing more brand-orien

According to the latest market study by ABI Research , the global market for digital signage -- including displays, media players, software, and installation or maintenance costs -- will grow from nearly $1.3 billion in 2010 to almost $4.5 billion in 2016. Larry Fisher, Practice Director at ABI, says "Digital signs have a more compelling impact than some forms of traditional media." Today's digital signage offerings have redefined the model for out-of-home advertising through the deployment of signs at malls, airports, and banks, among others -- signs that deliver content in real time, or content that has already been stored and scheduled for delivery at the most appropriate time. The majority of digital signage installations today are IP-based, underscoring the evolution of digital signage away from static advertising -- each media player requires connection to a remote content management server. This connection can be wired or wireless, and in some cases, is mad

Mobile broadband service revenues from the enterprise segment -- for wireless connectivity of laptops, netbooks, and media tablets -- will reach $36 billion worldwide, according to the latest ABI Research market study. Enterprise mobile broadband demand will be driven by a plethora of new commercial-oriented applications for the high-growth media tablet segment. Currently, enterprise penetration of media tablets is low, according to ABI's assessment. However, relative to other big-screen portable computers, tablet mobile broadband attach rates are actually high. In fact, in a recent survey of U.S. business customers, mobile broadband attach rates on media tablets were 33 percent higher than netbooks -- and twice as high as laptop computers. Of course, a key component of enterprise media tablet data plan adoption will be attractive pricing. Dan Shey, enterprise practice director at ABI says, "Favorable pricing and plan options have made it easy for early adopters in

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media , Internet users will upload and download 1.2 million petabytes of data per year by 2015 -- around seven times more than in 2010. Video will experience the most significant growth due to the phenomenal popularity of over-the-top entertainment services -- such as the BBC iPlayer and Netflix -- and will account for over half of all Internet traffic by 2015. But other services -- notably online storage and back-up services such as Rapidshare and Dropbox -- will experience considerable growth. The amount of Internet application traffic will vary greatly from region to region and -- despite the popular focus on the U.S. market -- Asia will be the larger region in terms of traffic by 2015. The Asia-Pacific market share will have increased to 42 percent of all global Internet traffic -- by virtue of the sheer growth in user numbers that this region will see over the forecast period. "Much of the hype about In

The media tablet application market evolved as an extension of the more developed smartphone application marketplace, but it's clearly focused on larger display devices. The market for tablet applications will continue to develop its own identity in the coming years, particularly as the product category potential continues to expand. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , tablet application revenues will top $15 billion in 2015. That said, it's not clear if the two apps market segments will always remain closely aligned. "While the tablet application experience is very similar to the smartphone application experience, there are some distinctions," says Amy Cravens, Senior Analyst at In-Stat. Although many smartphone apps are appearing in tablet form, developers are having to recreate those applications to adjust for differences in the tablet form factor. While the different versions of the OSs are likely to merge in the future, tablet applications

Mobile wireless signal reception issues are more acute when access devices, such as smartphones, are designed to use bandwidth-intensive applications. Adding new macro base stations has been the traditional way of creating new mobile radio capacity for service provider networks. However, cell tower locations are becoming harder to acquire, and the cost of new base stations can be prohibitive. The solution is to utilize distributed antenna systems. DAS represent a versatile indoor/outdoor approach for mobile transport by routing radio frequency (RF) signals through fiber or copper cabling from a single base station to multiple antennas located throughout a building or through antenna nodes. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , the total global revenue from DAS will surpass 13 billion in 2015. "Distributed antenna systems bridge several key areas in cellular coverage," says Chris Kissel, Analyst at In-Stat. "Femto-, pico-, micro-, and macrocells all au

Legacy marketers in the U.S. rarely invest the time and effort to understand the interests and needs of their customers, which would enable them to segment the addressable marketplace -- and thereby personalize their offerings. Why is target marketing uncommon? It's hard for someone schooled in traditional mass-marketing methods to make the transition. eMarketer reports that it requires having the market data that can be applied in relevant ways to personalize the marketing creative for each of the target groups. But for those that do the market assessment work and make the transition -- the pay-back can be significant, with personalized offers consistently outperforming the mass-market ones. March 2011 research from web content management provider EPiServer found that a third of U.S. marketers considered personalized campaigns to be highly effective and measurable, with another 14 percent reporting a better response rate than traditional campaigns. But the vast majority

The UK government's stated ambition to offer the best superfast broadband services in Europe have been negatively impacted over the past six months, according to the latest market study by Point Topic . The deployment of IP next-generation (IP-NGN) broadband technology by BT and alternative network service providers has lagged a long way behind the original plans. Furthermore, the adoption of these services -- where they are available -- has apparently been disappointing. Research by Point Topic shows that its overall measure of broadband coverage has actually declined -- falling from 55 percent to 53 percent in the reporting period. Meanwhile, the number of customers subscribing to superfast broadband services has been below target in many areas. Market Development Challenges Point Topic believes that BT will catch up on its plans, over the next year or two, and they forecast that superfast broadband will be available to two-thirds of all the homes and businesses in the UK

The rapid adoption and growth of Over-the-Top (OTT) video entertainment -- such as Netflix in the U.S. market --  is generating interest for various consumer electronics (CE) products that support streaming media services. One of these products, the streaming media player -- which is sometimes called an OTT set-top box or a digital media adapter, such as the Roku -- has enjoyed significant growth over the past two years. Worldwide streaming media player unit shipments are projected to increase in 2011, finishing the year at just over 3.6 million, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "There are some significant challenges facing the market for streaming media players," according to Mike Paxton, Research Director at In-Stat. Foremost among them is how to competitively position streaming media players against other products -- such as connected Blu-ray players and video game consoles, that are more common in both consumer households and in retail stores.

The early implementations of IPTV service deployments mirrored the legacy cable and satellite service models -- they were channel-centric offerings with the same strengths and weaknesses. None were inherently designed in preparation for the transformation to on-demand video applications. Infonetics Research released the results of its latest market study which captures service provider updated requirements for IP-based set-top boxes (STBs) -- to deliver pay-TV video entertainment services that can compete with Over-the-Top offerings. "Although low-cost set-top boxes designed to deliver basic video services over broadband infrastructure were the hallmark of IPTV services, strong competition and the need to increase ARPU have led to significant changes in STB design over the years, says Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research . The STB remains the most visible point of interaction between subscribers and IPTV providers and is a key component to a