Digital Lifescapes

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, LTE mobile network subscriptions are expected to exceed 40 million by the end of 2012, representing a fourfold increase over the nine million global LTE subscriptions in 2011. The wide range of expected LTE smartphone launches in 2012 from major OEMs -- such as Nokia, Samsung, and Apple -- as well as the surge in data consumption, are the main causes behind the rise in LTE subscriptions. Currently, the North American region accounts for 60 percent of total LTE subscriptions, followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 37 percent. However, Asia-Pacific LTE subscriptions are expected to overtake North America by 2014, primarily driven by adoption in China, India, Japan, and South Korea. "South Korea and Japan are witnessing amazing LTE subscription growth due to the availability of high-quality content, enabling the countries to be the next largest LTE markets after the U.S.," says Ying Kang Tan, research associate at ABI...

The pricing trend for new media tablets is downward, as more smaller and less-expensive models are introduced into the marketplace by a growing variety of different vendors. That being said, despite a series of low-cost media tablet launches in the second half of 2011, Apple's iPad tablet has managed to maintain its premier position in the Indian market with 51 percent market share in 2011. Samsung's achievement at extending its success in the handset segment to the tablet segment, with its Galaxy Tab, allowed Samsung to be ranked in second place -- with 24 percent market share. Indian consumers also showed a strong penchant for RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook -- after prices were slashed significantly, making it the third largest player with a 10.4 percent market share. The presence of ultra-low cost media tablets with non-optimal specifications might ruin the user experience and, in turn, prove to be a dampener for media tablet growth. "Although there is lot of b...

Home automation service offerings are rapidly transforming the way consumers will monitor, secure, and control their residence. Typically delivered by more expensive, custom-installed technology, home automation is now moving into the mainstream, with many companies adding home automation to their customer services. A number of factors are driving the new entrants into the market. Internet connectivity is one key factor. Not only are there currently high home broadband penetration rates, as well as the potential for embedded cellular connections to connect systems, but also smartphone applications allow consumers to control and check their homes from wherever they are. As connectivity options make the home automation systems more useful, market changes are also making home automation more affordable. A traditional large up-front installation and equipment purchase is increasingly being replaced by monthly subscription offerings -- often bundled alongside already existing servic...

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media, in 2016 mobile phone users will (on average) consume 6.5 times as much video, over eight times as much music or social media, and nearly 10 times as many games as in 2011. There will be a big upsurge in traffic for most mobile data services over the next five years, largely driven by the spread of smartphones and a 23 percent increase in the number of mobile users. In 2016, the average mobile user will be browsing six times as many web pages and downloading 14 times as many megabytes of applications on their handset as in 2011. Text (SMS) and picture (MMS) messaging traffic will continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than most other mobile data services. On average, mobile users sent 118 SMSes and two MMSes a month in 2011, compared to the 146 SMSes and four MMSes they will be sending in 2016. Usage of Internet-derived messaging services, namely instant messaging and e-mail, will see higher growth. For e...

While the advertising sector's market outlook still looks bleak in many nations, some emerging countries offer an upbeat perspective. As an example, the outlook for advertising as a whole within China is a very promising one, and marketer spending for online ads in particular is perhaps the most positive of all. eMarketer estimates that online ad spending increased by 43.2 percent in 2011, and they forecast another increase of 39 percent in 2012. Growth will be driven by the increased adoption in both internet penetration and online activities -- such as online video, social media and search. According to an April 2012 report from consultancies R3 and Admaster Digital Consulting, more than four-fifths of marketers in China plan on increasing digital media spending during 2012. Moreover, 41 percent of surveyed marketers plan to increase their spending by at least 20 percent, and 13 percent will increase spending by 50 percent or more in China. Marketers in China are espe...

According to the latest market study by ABI Research , about two-thirds of U.S. mobile app users have spent money on an application on at least one occasion. Among these paying users, the mean spend was $14 per month. Behind the seemingly high average amount there are, however, some striking findings. Senior analyst Aapo Markkanen at ABI said, “The median amount among the consumers who spend money on apps is much lower than the average, just $7.50 per month." This reflects the disproportionate role of big spenders as a revenue source. The highest-spending 3 percent of all app users account for nearly 20 percent of the total spend, while over 70 percent spends either nothing or very little. The numbers also reflect certain trends in different app categories. Thus far, the releases that have best succeeded in making money have typically been utility apps often used for business purposes, or iOS games monetized through strings of in-app purchases. In both cases the money co...

Adventurous technology marketers looking for new territory to explore should consider Tier 2 cities in China -- such as Chengdu and Sichuan, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Growing Tier 2 cities are exploding in terms of growth and this growth is coupled with a very high proportion of savvy consumers -- indicative of the exponential upside for digital tech companies. IDC's research program has identified six distinct consumer market segments: Tech Evangelists, Impulse Buyers, Experimental Adopters, Pragmatic Purchasers, Green Buyers, and Disengaged Functionalists. Tech Evangelists not only own the most devices and utilize the most advanced functions, features and apps, they are also the group that drives adoption of device ownership and usage by other market segments. Tech Evangelists hold enormous sway over the buying patterns and device usage trends mass-market segments exhibit. They are also the group that mainstream market ...

Mobile service providers have either a big challenge, or a big opportunity -- depending on your point of view. As a result of introducing new smartphones with broadband internet access offerings and promoting them vigorously, they're experiencing a variety of network performance issues. Some are addressing the issue with reactive bandwidth cap mandates or throttling data throughput, while others are proactively investing in new infrastructure to offload the growing mobile data traffic. Infonetics Research released excerpts from its latest market study report entitled "Carrier WiFi Offload and Hotspot Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey." Mobile operators now appear to be firmly behind carrier WiFi as a key solution for the mobile offload requirement -- even as they continue to investigate other small cell possibilities. "Our survey shows that whilst data offload is the current priority, in coming years operators will want to see a closer integration of W...

Are smartphone apps the next new marketing gimmick for retailers, or a valuable tool for their customers? According to the latest market study by ABI Research, given the results of a new survey of U.S. consumers, it may be both. Survey respondents who said they had downloaded a retailer-branded app said the app caused them to visit the store more (45.8%), buy more of the store or brand's products and services (40.4%), tell a friend about their store shopping experience (35.8%), and encourage friends to visit the store (30.8%). "These are overwhelmingly positive numbers," says senior analyst Mark Beccue at ABI Research . "They are so compelling that if retailers do not have a smartphone app strategy in place right now they are in danger of being left behind by their competitors." That being said, only 25 percent of the respondents had downloaded a retailer-branded app. It is possible the high level of positive response is due to the profile of the responden...

You may recall that in March I reported NPD In-Stat had forecast that proximity mobile payment transactions will approach 9.9 billion in 2016 -- that's up from 1.1 billion in 2012, nearly a ten-fold increase. That being said, proximity technology that's embedded in mobile handsets are just one of the many emerging global market opportunities for this evolving new online business model. U.S. android smartphone users engaged in mobile payment applications (via software apps) are on the rise, growing 8 percent since August last year to nearly 35 percent, according to the latest market study by The NPD Group . An increasing proportion of consumers are engaged in using their smartphones to move money, buy products and services on their phone, comparison shop, redeem coupons, and start to pay for all types of things -- using their mobile phone. "Mobile payment and wallet solutions are clearly at a very early stage of development, but consumers are demonstrating greater c...

As you may recall, I've reported in the past about the amazing broadband internet service offering competition in France, which has helped to drive down subscriber costs and increase the adoption of enhanced information and communication technology (ICT) applications. That being said, eMarketer reported that France has trailed the rest of the EU-5 (Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) in microblog usage during 2012, but growth recently accelerated as French politicians sought out voters on social media during a very close presidential election. The presidential race is over, but eMarketer estimates that the popularity of social networking -- especially via mobile devices, such as smartphones -- will continue to increase throughout the country. eMarketer expects social networks to attract 21.9 million users in France in 2012, increasing to 23.6 million in 2013. While the total number of social network users in the country is impressive, the number of social network users acces...

According to the latest market study by IDC Energy Insights , smart grid infrastructure investment will increase by 17.4 percent globally -- Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for hardware, software and services -- from 2010 to 2015 while overall spending will reach nearly $46.4 Billion worldwide in 2015. The Asia-Pacific region is forecast to experience the most growth in spending with a five-year CAGR of 33.7 percent. IDC Energy Insights identified 14 smart grid project types to help profile top investment priorities across the various regions of the world. They then reviewed data based on technology type (hardware, software and services), utility ownership (government owned or investor owned) and whether the utilities are electric only or a combination electric and gas. Utilities across the globe share the same or similar pressures and business drivers to make information and communications technology (ICT) investments in smart grid infrastructure. However, differences in re...

The ongoing outlook for the high-growth media tablet market segment is subject to seasonal fluctuation. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), a drop in shipments of Google Android-based media tablets was offset by a strong quarter from Apple -- and this result caused the media tablet market to miss projections for the first quarter of 2012 (1Q12). Total worldwide media tablet shipments for the quarter reached 17.4 million units in 1Q12 -- that's 1.2 million units below IDC's prior projection for the quarter. While IDC predicted a sharp seasonal slowdown of -34 percent from the previous quarter's record-breaking 28.2 million units, the actual decline was slightly steeper at -38.4 percent. However, that being said, the total still represents a solid year-over-year growth rate of 120 percent, which is up from the 7.9 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2011. "Apple's move to position the iPad as an all-purpose ...

I’ve previously shared a summary of observations during my attendance at the 2012 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive events earlier this year. What I didn’t mention was that I had the opportunity to briefly meet Kam Star, while he was in Austin, Texas attending SXSW. As the founder, Kam explained his aspirations for the Digital Shoreditch Festival -- to replicate some of the success of the SXSWi legacy within the London marketplace. Why should this bold goal matter to the British public. For starters, it’s about the potential economic impact. Case in point: for the second straight year, in 2011 the SXSW Interactive attendance fueled the impressive increase in event attendance -- although SXSW Film and SXSW Music also enjoyed banner years as well. The City of Austin’s hospitality industry benefitted from the outside visitors with two very profitable weeks. SXSW’s direct booking of more than 10,500 individual reservations totaling 47,500+ room nights -- that was an in...

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media , North America continues to lead global LTE market development -- with 10.8 million LTE subscriptions, that's more than two-thirds of the worldwide subscriber base as of March 2012. The U.S. has about 10.5 million LTE connections, while Canada contributes nearly 300,000 connections as of the first quarter 2012. On a global basis, the leading mobile broadband technology, HSPA, with more than 80 percent share of subscriptions in the mobile broadband market today, continues to achieve milestones. There are now 221 commercial HSPA+ networks in 107 countries including 80 commercial HSPA+ Dual-Carrier networks in 46 countries with peak theoretical uplink rates of 42 Mbps. "The surge is beginning for LTE subscriptions as operators gain new wireless spectrum, deploy infrastructure and offer LTE service," stated Chris Pearson, President of 4G Americas. "With over 220 HSPA+ deployments around the world...

comScore released data about key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending March 2012. Their latest market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall. Google Android continued to grow its share in the U.S. smartphone market, accounting for 51 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple iOS captured more than 30 percent. For the three-month average period ending in March, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.0 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points), followed by LG with 19.3 percent share. Apple continued to gain share in the OEM market, ranking third with 14.0 percent of mobile subscribers (up 1.6 percentage points), followed by Motorola with 12.8 percent and HTC with 6.0 percent. More than 106 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three...

Using their new and powerful mobile smartphones, an expanding class of American consumers -- 100 million strong and growing -- is helping to redefine the cultural norms in the U.S. marketplace. According to the latest market study by eMarketer, members of the "smartphone class" stand apart from other Americans in the way they shop, communicate, consume media -- even how they use their spare time. This class of smartphone-enabled people can be defined by their connectedness and their sense of empowerment that's attained through unfettered access to real-time online information. "What others do with a PC, they do with their smartphones," said Catherine Boyle, eMarketer senior analyst. Their phone is their workplace, entertainment center and their marketplace. They watch videos in coffee shops, social network at concerts, play games in waiting rooms, scan barcodes in stores and shop with their smartphone from anywhere at any time. Moreover, their mobi...

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), the market for ereaders in the EMEA region more than doubled in 2011 compared to the previous year, reaching total shipments of nearly 4.8 million units. There's growing mainstream adoption of these devices, which is creating the potential for incremental digital multimedia revenue. Although EMEA still accounts for just over 17 percent of the worldwide market, IDC forecasts sales in this region to exceed 24 million units by 2016, generating a 37 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the forecast period. The fall in prices greatly contributed to the sales momentum in 2011. The average price for ereaders continued to slide as Amazon aggressively brought the price of its WiFi Kindle device down to €99 in eurozone countries. In 2011, the company experienced strong acceleration in sales thanks to the the rapid uptake of Amazon Kindle devices in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. In these coun...

comScore reported key trends in Japan's mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending February 2012. The market study surveyed more than 4,000 Japanese mobile phone service subscribers and found Sharp to be the top mobile handset manufacturer overall -- with 23.5 percent market share. Google's Android platform accounted for the vast majority of Japan's smartphone market at 61.4 percent, followed by Apple with 34.2 percent of the market. "Smartphones surpassed feature phones as the most acquired device type in February 2012, signaling an important shift in Japan's mobile market," said Daizo Nishitani, vice president of comScore Japan KK. The rise in smartphone adoption opens the door to tremendous opportunity for content publishers and advertisers to expand their reach and increase engagement with key consumer segments through this channel. Japanese mobile phone users were already highly engaged with their devices, but with the add...

comScore announced the next generation of it's market study methodology, offering new insight into global digital device usage and content consumption. Their Device Essentials service includes reporting capabilities across all global geographies, plus detailed reporting for some local U.S. markets. Media Tablet Market Assessment The Amazon Kindle Fire, introduced to the market in November 2011, has seen rapid adoption among buyers of tablets. Within the Google Android media tablet market, Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share in the past two months from 29.4 percent share in December 2011 to 54.4 percent share in February 2012 -- already establishing itself as the leading Android tablet by a wide margin. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab family followed with a market share of 15.4 percent in February, followed by the Motorola Xoom with 7.0 percent share. The Asus Transformer and Toshiba AT100 rounded out the top five with 6.3 percent and 5.7 percent market share, respectively. Table...

Multilingual software app developers have a unique competitive advantage, as more people throughout the world adopt new mobile smartphone and media tablet devices. Locally-developed and well-translated content is the key to having mobile apps discovered by consumers. According to the latest market study by ABI Research , in Apple's Japanese App Store, 87 percent of the ten highest-ranked apps in all 21 categories were available in Japanese, as of February. Germany (83 percent) and France (82 percent) were other markets where over four-fifths of the highest-ranking apps were available in the local languages. In China, Chinese-speaking apps accounted for 76 percent of the highest-ranked apps -- with about half of them developed specifically for the local market. ABI senior analyst Aapo Markkanen said, "Our findings confirm that apps that fit into the local culture, or at least speak the audience's native language, see a measurable boost in their download rankings....

While there's still a raging debate over the full upside potential of the Digital Signage market, particularly within the retail industry, pundits and insiders know that the most effective way to quantify the market is to follow the display technology outlook. NPD DisplaySearch will once again host a one-day Digital Signage Conference at InfoComm, providing in-depth insight into the projected growth and emerging trends of the digital signage industry. The fifth annual Digital Signage Conference is taking place on June 12, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Practitioners in the digital signage sector will address the key distribution channels, revenue opportunities, hot markets and new technologies throughout the entire supply chain. "Flat panel displays continue to be a major force in the digital signage industry, as new technologies come to market and existing technologies adapt to changing demands," said Chris Connery, Vice President of Large Format Commercial Displays for NP...

I'm attending the Digital Shoreditch Festival, later this month when I visit London, England (my home town). One of the storyline topics that I'll be researching is how the savvy local digital media talent will be capitalizing on the upcoming London 2012 Summer Olympics event coverage. According to the latest assessment by eMarketer, in 2012 the total advertising spending growth within the UK will outpace the rest of Europe and the U.S. market for one reason: the highly anticipated global media buzz that will surround the London Olympics. In February, Strategy Analytics forecast that total ad spending in the UK will increase by 4.2 percent, compared to 3.7 percent in Europe overall and 2.7 percent in the U.S. marketplace. The boost from the Summer Olympics will push the UK closer to the worldwide average of 4.9 percent, which is buoyed by fast growth in emerging markets like China, Brazil and India. By comparison, eMarketer estimates that UK total advertising spendin...

During the last decade, the smart marketers have used a variety of search engine optimization (SEO) methods to attract traffic to their web sites. As more consumers adopt smartphones, and visit app stores to find useful software applications, today marketers must learn the evolving art and science of mobile app promotion. During a recent market study ABI Research asked a key question: Can an independent developer with a nonexistent marketing budget have the largest number of top apps in Apple’s ecosystem for three months in a row? And especially when the average rating for those apps is only 2.9 out of 5? This is the case for independent application developer Michael Quach, who continuously has the highest number of titles among the top iOS apps tracked by ABI Research. In February 2012, he had an average of 40 titles per country, out of a sample size of 5,250 in each country. This sample covered the highest-ranked 250 apps in all 21 categories. What can other app developers le...

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, 80 percent of all media tablet application downloads will be from a short list of very popular categories by 2016. They anticipate that Apple ​iPad and Google Android media tablet owners will remain avid app users over the next five years, averaging more than 31 downloads per year per media tablet. Their market study of emerging tablet applications found that 11 of the 13.7 billion app downloads forecast for Apple iPad and Google Android media tablets in 2016 will be focused on four primary categories: games, digital publishing, social networking, and e-commerce. "Media tablet app consumption will mimic smartphone app use in some ways, but in many ways, it will be very different," says Mark Beccue, senior analyst at ABI Research . Digital publishing of books, magazines, and newspapers will flourish on media tablets in a way never seen on smartphones." Increasingly, consumers will opt for the more versatile medi...

Infonetics Research released excerpts from two recently published video equipment market share and forecast reports. These latest market studies demonstrate how video entertainment applications demand is impacting broadband service provider (SP) infrastructure investment decisions. That being said, most of the growth will come from online video streaming apps, not traditional pay-TV. The first report, Video-on-Demand (VOD) and Encoder Equipment and Video Subscribers -- which tracks video equipment sold to telco IPTV, cable video, and satellite video providers. And the second report, Set-Top Boxes and Subscribers -- which tracks IP, cable, satellite hybrid, DVR, and high definition (HD) STBs, as well as over-the-top (OTT) media servers. "Two of the most interesting trends in the video equipment and set-top box markets are 1) across the board, pay-TV operators continue to increase their investments in MPEG-4 encoders to reduce bandwidth requirements for their broadcast channels ...

comScore released new market data showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in March 2012, while video advertising topped 8 billion for the first time on record. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in March with 146.1 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 60.6 million, VEVO with 51.3 million, Facebook.com with 45.1 million and Viacom Digital with 44.3 million. Nearly 37 billion video views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 15.7 billion, followed by Hulu with 1 billion and Yahoo! Sites with 815 million. The average viewer watched 21.7 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.1 hours) and Hulu (4.6 hours) posting the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. Americans viewed more than 8.3 billion video ads in March, representing an all-time high, with Hulu delivering an...