Skip to main content

Mobile Voice Over Wi-Fi Starts to Get Very Interesting

If you're thinking of holding on to your current smartphone because there's no compelling reason to upgrade, well you're not alone. The smartphone market in America has plateaued, now that most mobile network service providers removed phone subsidies and Apple offers unlocked iPhones directly to consumers (bypassing the U.S. wireless carriers).

In addition, the ongoing use of Facebook Messenger app is negatively impacting the legacy SMS revenue stream. When you combine that with the ongoing adoption of other popular mobile messaging software -- such as WhatsApp -- the trend is really troubling to mobile operators.

Besides, considering the outlook for Voice over Wi-Fi apps -- such as Google Hangouts Dialer -- the escalating OTT bypass trend now has the potential to cause a major market disruption. More mobile subscribers could downgrade to calling plans with fewer bundled cell network voice minutes.

That being said, comScore released data from its latest study of key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry for August 2015. Once again, Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 44.1 percent OEM market share.

Meanwhile, Google Android led as the number one smartphone platform with 51.7 percent platform market share. Moreover, Facebook ranked as the top individual smartphone software application.

Smartphone OEM Market Share

191.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (77.1 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in August. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 44.1 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (that's up 0.6 percentage points from May).

Samsung ranked second with 27.4 percent market share, followed by LG with 9.1 percent (that's up 0.9 percentage points), Motorola with 4.7 percent and HTC with 3.4 percent.

Smartphone Platform Market Share

Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in August with 51.7 percent market share, followed by Apple with 44.1 percent (that's up 0.6 percentage points from May), Microsoft with 2.9 percent, BlackBerry with 1.2 percent and Symbian with 0.1 percent.

Top Smartphone Software Apps

Facebook ranked as the top smartphone app, reaching 75.4 percent of the app audience (up from 73.3 percent the prior month), followed by Facebook Messenger (59.8 percent), YouTube (59.5 percent) and Google Play (52.1 percent).


Popular posts from this blog

How AI Reshapes a $360 Billion Foundry Market

Few technology sectors sit as close to the center of gravity in today's artificial intelligence (AI) economy as semiconductor manufacturing. Every AI chip that trains a frontier model, every GPU that powers a data center inference workload, and every power management IC that keeps hyperscaler facilities running traces its origins back to the global Foundry ecosystem. IDC's latest market study throws that reality into sharp relief, projecting that the broadly defined Foundry 2.0 market will surpass $360 billion in 2026, a 17 percent year-over-year gain that would have seemed optimistic even two years ago. For anyone advising boards or investment committees on technology and AI infrastructure strategy, this growth trajectory demands careful consideration. Foundry 2.0 Market Development The umbrella term covers four distinct verticals: pure-play foundry, non-memory integrated device manufacturer (IDM) production, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT), and photomask fab...