Digital Lifescapes

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media, almost two-thirds of the mobile phone handsets sold in China this year are powered by the Google Android operating system (OS). Did you know that China is the largest single market -- a third of all the Android devices sold in 2012 were to mobile network service subscribers in China? The U.S. is now the second-largest market for Android -- with an 11 percent share of the global market. Informa predicts that at least one in every two mobile phones sold in America in 2013 will be powered by the Android platform. "Despite the economic downturn, the global smartphone market is enjoying healthy growth and consumers are actually spending more to acquire more technologically-advanced devices," said explains Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media . It's estimated that around 786 million smartphone devices were sold in 2012 (including the devices powered by non-certified variants

As 2012 comes to a close, marketers can reflect upon the results of their significant ongoing advertising spend. Most will maintain the status quo by sinking the vast majority of their budget into advertising. That's good news for the troubled legacy media industry. Despite the global economic slowdowns, the media advertising sector is expected to continue growing for the next several years -- driven especially by increased spending within the emerging markets around the globe. eMarketer estimates that total media advertising spend worldwide has risen by 5.4 percent in 2012 -- to just under $519 billion -- that's compared to the 2011 increase of just 3.6 percent. Spending on adverting will continue to climb at a similar pace throughout eMarketer’s forecast period, which extends through 2016. By that year, eMarketer now forecasts that worldwide media ad spending will top $628 billion. The fastest growth will come from Latin America, where ad spending was already up b

Expect to see more stories about the apparent winners and losers within the consumer electronics (CE) marketplace in 2013. Announcements at the upcoming 2013 CES in Las Vegas will perpetuate the advance of a few market leaders, while also highlighting the ongoing decline of numerous companies that missed the market transition to a new era. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), the worldwide smart connected device market -- a collective view of PCs, media tablets, and smartphones -- grew 27.1 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2012 (3Q12) reaching a record 303.6 million shipments valued at $140.4 billion. Current forecasts for the holiday season quarter predict that shipments will continue to reach record levels -- rising 19.2 percent over 3Q12 and 26.5 percent over the same quarter a year ago. IDC says that 4Q12 shipments are expected to reach 362.0 million units with a market value of $169.2 billion. Holiday season growth wil

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its latest global market study and report which forecasts the fastest growing segment of the mobile network infrastructure market -- that being outdoor small cell backhaul. The market study was devided into eight discrete categories: the 3 forms of wireline -- copper, fiber, DSL; and the 5 forms of wireless -- licensed and unlicensed millimeter wave and point-to-point, point-to-multi-point, and non-line-of-sight, or NLOS, microwave. Their resulting report tracks and forecasts outdoor small cell backhaul equipment revenue, units, connections (aka links) and small cell sites by medium (copper, fiber, air). "There's been wild speculation on the small cell opportunity -- some that lump together small cells with residential femtocells, WiFi hotspots, and in-building and outdoor. Our latest research focuses on just the new, faster-growing outdoor small cell backhaul equipment market," says Michael Howard, co-founder and principal

While much of the recent market research explores in-home usage of online video from a Smart or Connected TV point of view, today the vast majority of television sets are not enabled for broadband connectivity and internet access. The growth of over-the-top (OTT) video entertainment services, such as Netflix and Hulu, is attracting attention to consumer electronics (CE) products that can support streaming media services -- while connected to a legacy TV set. One of these CE products -- the streaming media player -- has enjoyed significant growth over the past two years. Multimedia Research Group ( MRG ) has released its latest forecast on the worldwide streaming media player market. The upside market potential is significant, as more people seek ways to migrate their online video viewing from their notebook PC to their primary TV set. Streaming media players, sometimes called OTT set-top boxes or digital media adapters, consist of products such as the Apple TV, the WD TV Live,

The legacy pay-TV services market can now be divided into two distinct groups. First, those regions where the market is fully saturated and customer churn is the primary activity. Second, the developing nations where local pay-TV providers can still find new customers willing and able to pay for their offerings. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, the global pay-TV market added nearly 47 million new customers in 2012 -- reaching a total of 864 million subscribers. "The growth in satellite, cable, and IPTV markets was strong, although digital terrestrial TV growth was flat in 2012. We expect that the pay-TV market will continue to grow in 2013 to reach 907 million subscribers," said Jake Saunders, VP and practice director at ABI Research . The worldwide IPTV subscriber base has been increasing over the past few years. In 2013, the global IPTV subscriber base is expected to add over 9 million subscribers to reach 79.3 million. More than half of the net

If you're a marketer that has yet to embrace the mobile media platforms, then consider the apparent trend and ask yourself this question -- what am I waiting for? Many of the late adopters are already on-board, as mobile media enters the mainstream of consumer culture across the globe. The worldwide mobile advertising market is forecast to generate revenues of $12.8 billion in 2013, that's growing from an estimated $8 billion in 2012, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media. Mobile advertising revenues are growing every year but brands and advertisers are still spending much less on mobile compared with the amount they spend on traditional media -- such as TV, print and radio. Informa believes that in many cases, the analytics and insights available on mobile usage is not compelling enough for brands to spend a large portion of their advertising budget on the medium. "There is growing recognition of the importance of the mobile medium b

I can remember a time when the typical U.S. pay-TV subscriber encountered a reasonable monthly fee for access to the standard tier of channels, and when there were only a couple of additional premium channel options – such as HBO and Showtime. This was before the sports networks gained exclusive access to live sporting events, and before the American sport team owners started to demand huge payments for the broadcast rights to their video entertainment content. I never watched these sports channels and didn’t like the fact that I was being told (by default) to subsidize those pay-TV subscribers that did want to pay the high price. Therefore, I became one of the cable TV cord-cutters – a lost customer to the U.S. pay-TV industry, because a-la-carte channel selection was not an option. So, instead I subscribed to Netflix disc-by-mail service and quickly embraced over-the-top (OTT) video content when it was offered. I’ve since added Vudu to my short list of paid video streaming se

Who are the people that currently make up the online population in India and where will the new growth be centered? How important will wireline broadband internet access be in comparison to wireless mobile access? Where is online advertising spend focused within the Indian marketplace? These are the key questions that eMarketer considered during their latest market study. According to eMarketer's assessment, India is already undergoing a full-fledged digital transformation, but substantial obstacles to continued growth still remain in the market. Right now the country can best be described as a place of vast future upside potential. Internet penetration in India remains quite low to date -- at just under 9 percent of the population -- but it actually trails only the U.S. and China, in terms of the total number of internet users. While recent economic growth has helped develop a wider middle class in the nation, a sharp divide remains between the various groups within the

According to the latest market study by Ovum, traditional Internet Protocol network architectures are struggling to keep pace with user demand, as applications and services become more dynamic. Ovum believes that software-defined networking (SDN) is the answer to enabling future networks to become significantly more flexible, scalable, and intelligent. In a new report, Ovum examines the vendor and product landscape of the SDN market, profiling 37 companies and highlights the period of extreme innovation and transformation facing networks today. Ovum says that the conventional three-tier hierarchy -- access, aggregation, and core -- of network architecture is going away in favor of flatter architectures. Moreover, virtualized application software is replacing network appliances, and network infrastructure is becoming much more programmable. "SDN has already had a major impact on the communications industry by providing a focal point for a revitalized interest in networkin

Mobile application storefronts had collectively distributed a cumulative total of 81 billion smartphone and media tablet apps -- as of the end of September 2012 -- according to the latest market study from ABI Research. Of these apps that were distributed, 89 percent were downloaded from native storefronts that come with the mobile device's operating system (OS). "The current status quo is based on storefronts that the operating system vendors provide as part of the OS experience, and there is no evidence that this would change in the future," said Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst at ABI Research . A year ago this wasn't the scenario. For example, some mobile operators could find a viable business case in the curation of Android apps, but that opportunity quickly evaporated once Google executed on its own storefront strategy. As I've stated before, the creation and expansion of an independent software application developer ecosystem is a significant strategi

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media, the smartphone market will start to diverge and sales will become dominated by two distinct categories -- low-end devices (priced below $150) and high-end devices (priced above $250). Overall, the pricing trend is downward. More expensive smartphones will find their market share shrinking from 85 percent of total smartphones sold in 2011 to 33 percent in 2017. In contrast, the low-end smartphones will gain significant new market share during the coming years to account for just over half (52 percent) of all the smartphones sold in 2017. The smartphone market is undergoing change -- whereby demand will be increasingly polarized between expensive and heavily-subsidized handsets, and affordable devices targeting the emerging markets. As a result, smartphone competition is becoming more intense. The average smartphone price will drop from $188 in 2011 to $152 in 2017 -- as a result of balancing the huge demand

The global mobile phone market is forecast to grow at just 1.4 percent year-over-year in 2012 -- that's the lowest annual growth rate in three years. Regardless, the total volume of shipped devices was significant. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), vendors will ship more than 1.7 billion mobile phones this year. In 2016, IDC forecasts 2.2 billion mobile phones will be shipped globally. Worldwide smartphone volume in the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12) is expected to reach 224.5 million units, that's representing a 39.5 percent year-over-year growth -- due primarily to strong consumer demand. For the year, smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 45.1 percent Y-o-Y to 717.5 million units. Strong smartphone growth is a result of a variety of factors, including steep device subsidies from mobile network service providers, especially in mature economic markets where carriers resell the majority of smartphones, as well as a growing

Juniper Research has shared its revised forecasts for the global mobile near-field communication (NFC) market, which now has scaling back its growth estimates for the North American and Western European markets. While their latest market study finds that by 2017 the proportion of NFC-enabled smartphones will be only marginally below previous estimates, global NFC retail transaction values are now expected to reach $110 billion in 2017 -- that's significantly below the $180 billion previously forecast. According to Juniper's assessment, the Apple decision to omit an NFC chipset from the iPhone 5 has reduced retailer and brand confidence in the technology, leading to reduced POS (Point of Sale) rollouts and less NFC campaigns. This in turn will lead to lower NFC visibility amongst consumers and fewer opportunities to make payments, thereby creating a cycle of indifference to NFC technologies in the short term. "While many vendors have introduced NFC-enabled smartphon

In what now seems like the distant past, previously everything that I did with digital content   typically revolved around just one multifaceted device, with various local storage options – that was my laptop PC with a variety of USB memory sticks and a couple of mobile hard drives. Today, I’m embracing a different Digital Lifescape – one that includes multiple device types, where much of the content that I produce is stored in the cloud. In fact, while some apps do everything on my mobile device, an increasing number of software applications that I use also reside within the cloud. Sharing content with friends, family or business associates are easier to do when it’s all stored in the cloud. In the legacy PC era, I used to send small files via email as attachments and use snail-mail for collections of larger files that were on a CD-ROM disc or flash memory drive. Today, I merely change the access privileges for the content asset that I want to share and point the person(s) to th

How many people are playing social, mobile and online games? How much revenue are social and mobile games producing, and how is this income derived? And, what online and mobile venues are game developers using, and how is the online venue mix evolving? These are some of the key questions that eMarketer pondered during their latest gaming market study. American audiences for mobile games are growing rapidly, while active players for more mature categories -- such as social and online casual gaming -- are expected to grow more modestly in the next few years, according to eMarketer . As a result, advertising in mobile gaming will expand faster than in other areas. Social gaming revenues will also grow -- thanks to momentum in virtual goods monetization and advertising, but growth in social will be less spectacular than in mobile. Meanwhile, eMarketer believes that sales of traditional packaged video games and gaming consoles will show signs of contraction. A survey by Frank N.

Ultrabook computers were supposed to be the Next Big Thing for Windows-based PC vendors -- at least that was the idea when it was first presented to Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel. Apparently, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, was as enthusiastic as Otellini that this would be a plausible solution to the decline in profit margins. However, low ultrabook sales in the first half of 2012 clearly undermined the prior bullish claims that 40 percent of all notebook shipments would be these new high-priced devices. PC vendor enthusiasm quickly turned to disappointment as retailer orders for ultrabooks were either cut-back or cancelled -- once the reality of the miscalculation was fully acknowledged. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, higher than expected device prices, the prolonged wait for Windows 8, combined with a sluggish global economy have hindered sales for the new thin and light portable computers. Nevertheless, after the launch of Windows 8 and the release of

comScore reported the key trends within the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending October 2012. Their latest market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26.3 percent market share. Once again, Google Android continues to lead among smartphone OS platforms, accounting for 53.6 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple was able to secure just 34.3 percent. The Android ecosystem has gained significant traction within the media tablet market as well, which likely also helps to drive further adoption -- attracting a huge pool of independent software app developers. For the three-month average period ending in October, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points). Apple ranked second for the first time on record with 17.8 percent market share (up 1.5 percentage points), followed by LG w

The cellular mobile communications market continues to attract new subscribers within the African continent -- which in turn is helping to fuel regional and local socioeconomic development. In 3Q-2012, the continent's 54 countries and 1.08 billion people have accumulated 821 million mobile network subscriptions -- that's up 16.9 percent year-on-year, resulting in a cellular subscription penetration of 76.4 percent. In the first quarter of 2013, it's now forecast that cellular phone penetration will eclipse 80 percent, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Given the fact that a significant percentage of prepaid phone users maintain more than one active prepaid mobile subscription to minimize interconnection charges, there is still subscriber growth to be had. "While Western Europe languishes with barely positive overall growth quarter-on-quarter, Africa managed to generate 4.2 percent growth in the same period," said Marina Lu, research asso

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media, 31 percent of households worldwide will own at least one Smart TV in five years time, with household penetration much higher in North America (63 percent) and Western Europe (64 percent). They now forecast that over 220 million smart TV sets will be sold worldwide in 2017, that's up from the 54 million that have been sold in 2012. However, while smart TV connection rates are rising, they will continue to lag the connection rates of video game consoles and media streaming devices -- such as Apple TV and the Roku streaming player. With their long lifecycles, Informa believes that TVs are likely not the best device to be the hub of the digital home. Instead, smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, media streamers and games consoles, will be the key devices driving the digital home experience. Smartphones in particular, with their short life-cycles and rapidly increasing processor power, will continue to define

Mobile Network operators -- including Vodafone, O2, Telefonica, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint -- are putting significant resources into developing Machine to Machine (M2M) related business units. There is an increasing sophistication in how the market is viewed by all stakeholders, with after-market installation being replaced by embedded mobile strategies and SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) systems. Juniper Research forecasts that M2M will support total industry revenues of over $35 billion in 2016. They also predict that revenues from products and services delivered over embedded consumer electronics (CE) devices will reach $6.4 billion in 2014, as a key anchor for the evolving M2M sector within the mobile industry. According to their latest market study, eBook sales and subscriptions will be by far the most important service offered over cellular connected consumer electronics devices. While others have emerged, such as digital photo frames and

What are the new customer service channels that are gaining traction in the marketplace? How has the concept of customer care evolved? And, what are the challenges and opportunities of "social" customer service? These are some of the key questions that eMarketer considered as part of their market study. The increased adoption of the internet has led to major changes in customer service best practices, according to the latest eMarketer assessment. Savvy shoppers already have an array of online customer service tools at their disposal -- including live chat, social networks and smartphone apps. Today, the stakes are high for all retailers that try to keep up with the current trends. Consumers will quickly punish retailers that do not meet their customer expectations -- but they will also reward those that do. Findings from a Q1 2012 study by the Temkin Group showed that customers are loyal to businesses that provide good customer service. In fact,  86 percent of surve

BIA/Kelsey forecasts U.S. social media advertising revenues will reach $9.2 billion in 2016 -- that's up from $4.6 billion in 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.2 percent. According to the finding from their fall update, the local segment of U.S. social media advertising revenues will grow from $1.1 billion in 2012 to $3 billion in 2016 (CAGR: 28 percent). "The year 2012 can be viewed as social advertising’s coming of age," said Jed Williams, program director, social local media at BIA/Kelsey . The continued development of native ads, such as Facebook Sponsored Stories and Twitter Promoted Tweets, and the acceleration of mobile monetization will be the primary drivers of social advertising growth through 2016. BIA/Kelsey defines social media advertising as money spent on advertising formats across social networks. Social display advertising will continue to account for a higher percentage of revenues, due in large part to Facebook’s Ma

As 2012 comes to a close, revenues accumulated by the global mobile application (app) market will pass the $30 billion milestone by the end of this year, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The cumulative revenue base includes the income from pay-per-downloads, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and in-app advertisements. Furthermore, it's nearly double the amount that had been reached by the end of 2011. "Consumer's high interest in apps has for a long time been obvious from download volumes, but it's 2012 that will go down in history as the year when the economic side of the business finally took off. We're no longer talking only about a short-term gold rush. Apps have become a major digital industry," said Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst at ABI Research. The catalyst behind turning mobile apps into meaningful revenue has been Apple, which created a restrictive "walled garden" operating system (iOS) model that forced mobile ne

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media, the global online video market will reach $37 billion in 2017 -- driven by the growing popularity of over-the-top (OTT) services, such as Netflix and YouTube. This growth is made up of the three key video revenue streams of advertising, subscriptions and transactions. Informa says that while the online video market has matured in 2012, advertising will continue to be a larger revenue generator than paid subscriptions in 2017. In the near-term, online video remains a small, but growing, proportion of total video entertainment revenues. Moreover, Informa estimates that it will only account for 8 percent of revenues by 2017. By the end of the decade, if current growth rates continue, it will account for over 10 percent of revenues. However, its value in the market today is spread among a relatively small group of industry leaders. "It's clear that online video, today, is worth much more than the digita

It's now forecast that a total of 1.95 billion near field communication (NFC) enabled devices will ship in 2017 -- a combination of both mobile handsets and consumer electronics (CE) Devices -- according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The majority of NFC enablement will continue to be focused in the mobile handset market, although ABI says that they are expecting a surge of NFC functionality included within CE products -- for simple pairing of devices, exchange of data, and online authentication functionality. In total, 395 million CE devices will ship in 2017, predominantly into media tablets, PC accessories, and gaming consoles. NFC inclusion into devices other than handsets shows market development and an understanding that NFC will be more than payments. Added value will be provided through the enablement of convenient online/offline authentication, retail and loyalty applications, reader functionality, AFC, and advertising as a host of value added opportun

According to the latest market study by Infonetics Research, traditional pay-TV subscribers are now far less loyal than they used to be. That new independence has freed many from the expense of high-cost video entertainment services. That being said, the cable TV industry is more characterized by churn than cord cutting, as subscribers take advantage of introductory pricing on satellite and IPTV subscriptions -- typically, that's 30-50 percent lower than their cable TV service fees. Infonetics released excerpts from its "Pay-TV Services and Subscribers report," which forecasts and analyzes the telco Internet protocol television (IPTV), cable video, and satellite video services markets. Apparently, this is a market in transition, as the economy motivates more pay-TV subscribers to seek a better value for their money. "Ongoing challenging economic conditions in the key revenue-generating markets of North America and Western Europe have resulted in slowing subscri

How much did UK advertisers spend on online platforms in 2012? How will spending on paid search, display and other digital advertising formats develop in the UK during the next four years? And, how much ad spending in the UK will be devoted to mobile platforms between 2012 and 2016? These are the key questions that eMarketer considered in their latest market study. As the UK economy struggles to gain new momentum, their major marketers continue to spend. As a result, the UK advertising industry is apparently doing better than many other sectors, according to eMarketer's assessment. In particular, the ongoing shift from traditional to digital advertising is boosting the overall market outlook. eMarketer reported that total media advertiser spending increased by a paltry 1.8 percent, to $23.2 billion, in 2011. However, during 2012, traditional advertisers benefited from the increased media attention gained from major sporting events -- particularly the focus on the London O