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Tag: market-data

  • Samsung Takes Lead in U.S. LCD-TV Market in Q1

    Samsung in the first quarter of 2010 regained the leading position in the U.S. LCD-TV market, as the company capitalized on rising consumer demand for television sets with advanced features, including LED-backlighting, built-in internet connectivity and 3-D images, according to iSuppli.

    Samsung in Q1shipped 1.1 million LCD-TV sets in the United States. While this was down 33 percent from the fourth quarter, Samsung actually outperformed the overall U.S. LCD-TV market, which contracted by 35.8 percent sequentially due to seasonal factors. "This allowed Samsung to increase its market share to 18 percent in the first quarter, up from 17.3 percent in the fourth quarter, giving it the top position in the U.S. market," said Riddhi Patel, principal analyst, television systems, for iSuppli. 

    According to her, the year 2010 "marks a major transition period for the U.S. LCD-TV market, when consumers increasingly are gravitating toward sets with more advanced features.”

    “With Samsung at the forefront of trends including LED backlighting and 3-D, the company has been able to outperform the market and its closest competitors,” she said.

    The report finds that Samsung of South Korea retook the lead from U.S.-based brand Vizio, whose unit shipments declined by 42.2 percent sequentially in the first quarter. Vizio and Samsung have been engaged in a tight race for leadership in the U.S. LCD-TV market, with the two companies frequently swapping the No. 1 position from quarter to quarter. Samsung held a 1.3 percent point lead over Vizio in the first quarter of 2010, the same margin in which Vizio led Samsung in the fourth quarter of 2009.

    According to iSuppli, the U.S. LCD-TV market in 2010 is set to undergo a rapid transition away from traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs) and toward LED backlighting technology. Shipments of LED-backlit LCD-TVs in the United States are projected to rise to 7.7 million units in 2010, up about 600 percent from 1.1 million in 2009. LED-backlit models will account for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. LCD-TV shipments in 2010, at 23.4 percent, up from only 3.4 percent in 2009.

    Meanwhile, Internet-Enabled Televisions (IETVs) are attracting consumer interest, with U.S. shipments expected to rise to 11.8 million units in 2010, up from 6.9 million in 2009.

    Among U.S. consumers that purchased new televisions in the first quarter, 26.8 percent indicated their new sets were connected to the Internet, either though the internal capabilities of their TVs or via external devices, such as digital video boxes or game consoles. This is up from 24.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Over time, IETVs will account for a rising portion of Internet connectivity in televisions.The most popular types of Internet content accessed by consumers are movies and social networking services.

    The research group says that U.S. shipments of 3-D TVs—introduced to the market for the first time in March—are expected to reach 1.45 to1.5 million units in 2010, thanks to increasing acceptance from enthusiastic early adopters.

  • iSuppli: HP’s Palm Acquisition Opens up a Tablet of Possibilities

    Hewlett-Packard planned acquisition of Palm immediately puts the PC-centric company knee-deep in the smart phone race, but perhaps more importantly positions the company to compete in the burgeoning tablet market, says iSuppli.

    According to the research firm, the acquisition gives HP the means to use Palm’s WebOS platform to release a tablet device that will compete against Apple’s iPad as well as whatever arises from the relationship between Nokia and Intel.

    iSuppli forecasts worldwide tablet shipments will expand to 11.0 million units in 2010, up from just 2.0 million units in 2009 and 1.8 million units in 2008. Most of the shipments in 2010 will be made up by sales of the iPad, and sales will continue to expand in the coming years as a range of competitors enters the tablet market.

    iSuppli believes that a key component in HP’s strategy will be to utilize its common WebOS operating system as a basis for developing a tablet that can use the same applications and services being employed by the company’s existing smart phone product line.

    According to the analysts, the challenge for HP is to develop an ecosystem around a platform that will be able to compete with the centralized apps store Apple has created. That also means garnering support from leading developers in order to get the right apps and features available for multi-platform mobilized devices.

    What this means is that there are now three major competitors positioning for a fully interoperable, multi-device platform: Nokia/Intel, Apple and now HP with its Palm purchase.

    “Even so, this doesn’t even address the number of Taiwanese and other vendors that are developing their own tablet PCs in what will surely be a highly competitive market in years to come,” as iSuppli claims.

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  • iPhone 4 Sounds Starting Gun for Smartphone Gyroscope Market

    Monday’s introduction of the iPhone 4 is set to trigger explosive growth in the market for gyroscopes used in cell phones, as a flood of competitors vie to emulate the feature, says iSuppli.

    According to the research group, global unit shipments of gyroscopes in mobile handsets are expected to rise to 285 million in 2014, up from 26 million in 2010 and from zero in 2009.

    The integration of the gyroscope in the iPhone 4, which is set to begin shipping on June 24, confirms iSuppli’s forecast that these parts would make their first appearance in smart phones this summer.

    “Because of Apple’s role as a technology trendsetter, a multitude of mobile handset OEMs are expected to offer smart phones that integrate gyroscopes,” said Jérémie Bouchaud, director and principal analyst, Microelectromechanical Systems, for iSuppli. “This will cause shipments to rise by 157 percent in 2011 and by 60 percent in 2012 and 2013.”

    Mobile handset makers until recently have shown little interest in gyroscopes, Bouchaud noted. However, the success of the Nintendo Wii Motion Plus video game console demonstrated the consumer appeal of gyroscopes for game playing. Meanwhile, InvenSense and STMicroelectronics have offered a cascade of new gyroscopes with 2 and 3 axes, making the technology more accessible.

    “STMicroelectronics is the sole supplier of accelerometers for previous models of the iPhone, as well as for the iPad and the iPod line,” Bouchaud said.

    “Because of this, we believe that STMicroelectronics is also the supplier of the gyroscope in the iPhone 4. However, we will have to wait for confirmation from iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Service when it dissects the iPhone 4 in late June.”

    According to the analysts, the main applications for gyroscopes in cell phones in 2010 and 2011 will comprise a user interface utilizing a gyroscope in combination with an accelerometer, followed by image stabilization and dead-reckoning for in-vehicle navigation.

    From 2012, gyroscopes will start to be used for indoor navigation in combination with an accelerometer, compass and pressure sensor for floor accuracy. By 2014, the market for gyroscopes in cell phones is expected to amount to $220 million.

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  • Netsize Trends Survey Tracks Fast-Growth in Independent Application Stores

    Netsize has released “Application Store Billing”, a report that analyzes the wave of recent application store developments and reveals the business models and billing methods that will bring application store mass-market success.

    The report concludes that credit card billing is by no means the way to reach a large and global audience. According to the analysts, to achieve this respondents agree application stores must harness a variety of billing mechanisms. Chief among these is operator billing, indicated by 85 percent of respondents as a key enabler for application store mass market appeal. Almost half (46 percent) of respondents believe operator billing alone will dominate; 39 percent also include credit card billing in the mix. A minority of 15 percent of respondents indicated only credit card billing.

    “The survey shows providers will need to develop much more than a me-too application storefront modeled on the Apple blueprint,” noted Stanislas Chesnais, CEO of Netsize.

    “Clearly, to guarantee a seamless user experience and a ubiquitous quality of service, application store providers must support a variety of payment mechanisms including operator billing,” he said.

    The research also presents substantial proof that a long tail of application stores is indeed emerging. To illustrate this key trend Netsize has identified and ranked the top 52 application stores by size and the number of applications on offer as of May 2010. Predictably, application stores linked with the Apple iPhone and Android platforms lead the list. However, a substantial number of independent application stores run by mobile operators and independent providers also hold top positions.

    “New entrants are breaking on the scene with niche application stores that target geographies and vertical markets, such as retail, enterprise, and even cars,” Chesnais explained.

    “There is huge opportunity ahead for applications stores providers, but the bulk of their business growth will be driven by freemium-type models that offer consumers free applications as a means to cross-sell or up-sell consumers to a variety of paid content and services, ranging from real-world physical goods to digital services. Making money in this new ‘Application Economy’ will therefore require providers to employ in-application billing and solutions that allow them to sell content, virtual goods and add-ons from within their app,” he said.

    This conclusion is further supported by the report findings, which show that 28 percent of respondents deem in-app billing to be a key factor for application store success.

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  • Mobile Location-based Service Revenues in Europe to Reach €420 Million by 2015

    According to a new report from Berg Insight, mobile location-based service revenues in Europe are forecasted to grow from € 220 million in 2009 at a CAGR of 12 percent to reach € 420 million in 2015.

    The research group estimates that one third of all mobile subscribers in Europe will use some kind of location-enhanced application on a regular basis by 2015.

    Local search, navigation services and social networking are believed to become the top applications in terms of number of users. The social networking category is forecasted to experience the highest growth in the coming years.

    According to André Malm, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight, location-based services are finally on the verge of mainstream acceptance. “Increasing sales of smartphones are driving end-user awareness of mobile Internet services and applications in general. On-device application stores enable access to mobile services for a broader audience at the same time as flat-rate data plans make pricing more transparent. More and more developers are now adding location support in their applications to enhance the user experience”, he said.

    He added that integration of GPS in handsets is an important driver. “The installed base of GPS handsets in Europe has recently surpassed 15 percent of total handsets and will increase to 50 percent three years from now.”

    The report shows that the revenue model for many mobile applications in the consumer segment is shifting from premium fees to ad-funding. This is especially the case for location-based services where now also navigation services are becoming free for end-users and developers monetise their offerings through ads and various bundles.

    “However, revenues may not grow at the same rate as usage because the mobile advertising ecosystem is still nascent. It will take some years before a successful model has been established that allows advertisers to reach out to a critical mass of active users. This is especially the case for emerging location-based advertising,” as the analysts claim.

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  • AIRCOM: LTE Not the Only Option for Mobile Operators Today

    Deployment of HSPA+, set to save operators from costly CAPEX investment, deliver five times current network performance and open up new pricing models, says AIRCOM.

    In its recent analysis, AIRCOM, a network planning and optimisation company, highlights why HSPA+ could make short-term commercial sense to a wide range of 3GPP operators contemplating their mobile broadband network migration strategies. ROI (return on investment) and new pricing models are the key factors.

    According to Aircom, as operators continue to address the rapidly increasing demand for mobile data, further attention and financial investment has been committed to upgrade existing network infrastructure. “With peak download speeds above 100 Mbps being suggested, LTE has been widely hailed as the panacea for operators’ congestion troubles,” as the analysts say.

    Based on analysis of network infrastructure requirements, AIRCOM identifies HSPA+ as a compelling alternative for operators’ mobile broadband strategies.

    Available today, the technology offers up to 21Mbps without any additional antenna infrastructure or second carrier – allowing users to experience mobile broadband around five times faster than the current average of 3.6Mbps.

    HSPA+ also allows mobile operators to control service provisioning and prioritisation, delivering Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees.

    “Fundamentally, deployment of HSPA+ offers significantly reduced CAPEX investment compared to LTE. Reduction for a UK operator could be as much as £345 million in 12 months; as much as $1.19 billion for a US operator,” claims Aircom.

    AIRCOM Services Director, Fabricio Martinez, responsible for providing the industry with the ‘cost of LTE’ reality check in late 2009, said: “There is great pressure on operators to upgrade their networks and improve the level of service they deliver to consumers and enterprise customers. The so-called ‘iPhone effect’ is piling pressure on to existing infrastructure. There is a real and immediate need for operators to upgrade their networks, but LTE is not the answer – today at least.”

    HSPA+ is able to meet – and exceed – current data demands, delivering a theoretical maximum of 21Mbps and an average experience of around 16Mbps. “With average mobile broadband users experiencing around 3.6Mbps, this is a significant increase,” said Martinez.

    According to him, the increase in speed enables operators to do two things: to combat price erosion, and to offer sophisticated service provisioning. “As operators are able to prioritise data traffic and users, QoE can be assured, data speeds can be controlled, and we will see a tiered pricing model emerge, mirroring the fixed line broadband business,” the analyst claims.

    He believes that the most important factor in deciding a future network technology is ROI. “Due to the low CAPEX investment and new revenue opportunities, deployment of HSPA+ will allow operators to see ROI in three years; perfect timing to upgrade to LTE, when that technology’s ecosystem has matured, devices have come to market, and equipment prices have reduced,” he said.

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  • IDC: Mobile Payments Will Take Longer To Bear Fruit than Most Observers Hope

    IDC Financial Insights recently released a new report, which analyzes the mobile payment and mobile banking space in the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.

    The research group highlights that the mobile commerce payments market still has a long way to go before any serious impact will be felt by consumers or by the retail industry.

    “Steady moves by card issuers to increase the adoption of contactless cards and the increasing acceptance of mobile banking as a channel are prerequisites for the emergence of any meaningful, full-sized mobile payments market in Western Europe,” say analysts.

    IDC estimates that the share of contactless/mobile/remote payment transaction in 2015 will be no more than $125 billion with less than 13% of European mobile handset users registered to use a payment service.

    According to the report, the mobile payments industry must focus less on the use of advanced technology to partially replace existing payment methods, and more on the more practical (and sometimes mundane) application of the technology to specific processes.

    A close analysis of the industry shows that over the next three to five years the lack of a positive business case for all players will hamper many mobile payments projects. IDC also predicts that mobile banking (account info access and alerts) will blaze a trail over the next two to three years, laying the foundations for mobile payments.

    According to IDC analysts, key foundations for the success of retail mobile payments in Western Europe lie in the advancement of contactless debit/credit cards POS infrastructure.

    "Mobile payments are still an emerging technology capability that will take significantly longer to bear fruit than most industry observers hope," said Trevor LaFleche, senior research analyst, with IDC Financial Insights’ European banking practice for EMEA.

    "Shifting technological foundations of what constitutes a mobile device will confound industry purists, as has often happened when a technology does not take off as predicted. The varied nature of existing infrastructure and consumer need will continue to split the EMEA region into three distinct segments, which will need to be uniquely served to improve the penetration of the correct payment service to the correct market," he added.

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  • Gartner: Worldwide Smarpthone Sales Grew 49% in Q1 2010

    Worldwide smarpthone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 48.7% from the first quarter of 2009, according to Gartner. Mobile phone sales totalled 314.7 million units, a 17% increase from the same period in 2009.

    Gartner report "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q10" shows that among the most successful vendors were those that controlled an integrated set of operating system, hardware and services.

    "In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales to end users saw their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

    Q1 2010 saw RIM, “a pure smartphone player”, make its debut in the top five mobile devices manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points. Android’s momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707% year-on-year.

    According to the report, growth in the mobile devices market was driven by double-digit growth of smartphone sales in mature markets, helped by wider product availability as well as mass market price tags.

    “Increasing sales of white-box products in some emerging regions, in particular India, also drove sales of mobile phones upward. We expect sales of white-box products to remain very healthy for the remainder of 2010, especially outside of China,” said Milanesi.

    The first quarter also saw some movement outside the top five mobile handset vendor rankings: Hong Kong-based manufacturer G-Five made its debut into the top 10, grabbing 1.4% of market share

    The rise of white-box manufacturers from Asia has also helped the "others" section, as a proportion of overall sales, increase its market share to 19.20%, up 2.7 percentage points.

    “This is having a profound effect on the top five mobile handset manufacturers’ combined share that dropped from 73.3 in the first quarter of 2009 to 70.7% in the first quarter of 2010,” said Milanesi.

    In Q1 2010, Nokia‘s mobile phone sales to end users reached 110.1 million units, a 1.2% decline in market share year-on-year. Although Nokia’s midtier products sold well, Nokia lacks a high-volume driver in the high-end, according to the analysts.

    “MeeGo based devices and other high-end products will not rejuvenate Nokia’s premium portfolio until the end of the third quarter of 2010 at the earliest, and Nokia will continue to feel pressure on its average selling price (ASP) from vendors such as HTC, RIM and Samsung,” said Milanesi.

    The reorganisation announced last week demonstrated that Nokia is trying to streamline the reporting process to deliver results quickly, which Gartner believes shows its recognition of the pressure it faces from investors.

    Samsung sold 64.9 million devices in Q1 2010, an increase of 26.3% year-on-year. Samsung was one of the five vendors in the top10 vendors ranking to grow its market share, which increased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year.

    RIM’s mobile phone sales reached 10.6 million units, a 45.9% increase year-on-year. RIM is making its debut into the top five worldwide mobile handset manufacturers ranking. RIM’s focus this quarter was centred on its ecosystem strategy, its tightly integrated control of store, OS and device played to RIM’s strengths, according to the report.

    The reports also shows that the first quarter of 2010 was Apple’s strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2% increase in mobile devices sales.

    “Growth came partly from new communication service providers in established markets, such as the UK, and stronger sales in new markets such as China and South Korea,” said Milanesi.

    She claims that the second quarter of 2010 will be a very important one for Apple. “We expect that Apple will present its new iPhone in June during its Worldwide Developer Conference, which will be the first to feature the latest release of the iPhone OS that includes welcome improvements for developers and users, such as multitasking,” she said.

    OS market
    In the smartphone OS market, Android and Apple were the winners in Q1 2010. Android moved to the No. 4 position displacing Microsoft Windows Mobile for the first time. Both Android and Apple were the only two OSs vendors among the top five to increase market share year-on-year.

    Symbian remained in the No. 1 position but continued to lose as Nokia remains weak in the high-end portfolio.

    Smartphones accounted for 17.3% of all mobile handset sales in the first quarter of 2010, up from 13.6% in the same period in 2009.

    “As seen with the iPad and web books based on Google’s Android platform, mobile OS ecosystems are developing and will move beyond smartphones to continue to deliver consumer value and a rich user experience,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.

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  • ABI Research: 2012 Will Be a “Bellwether” Year for 4G

    ABI Research has been tracking cities and population coverage for 4G for the past year. The research group reports that at the end of 2009 there were more than 170 802.16e carriers across 65 countries, covering 480 million people. That number is projected to cross the 1 billion mark by 4Q-2012.

    According to ABI, USB dongles have been an excellent vehicle to prime the market along with CPE and laptops, but mobile handsets will be essential to the success of WiMAX.

    Yota, Sprint, and Clearwire have already started beefing up their lineups with models from HTC and Samsung. Meanwhile, mobile operators are seeking out LTE licenses. ABI predicts that twenty carriers will launch by 4Q-2010. Population coverage lags WiMAX but will catch up, reaching 600 million people by 4Q-2012. LTE coverage will start in urban hotspots but carriers indicate they will push coverage rapidly in order to handle the increasing mobile data wave.

    Analysts also think that the 4G market could well have 150 million subscriptions by 4Q-2014. They claim that the split between WiMAX and LTE will depend on WiMAX carrier commitments to upgrade to 802.16m. “WiMAX vendors such as Motorola and Huawei are gearing up to offer “802.16e+” which will bring features of 802.16m to the current market. Many companies in the ecosystem are already working on interoperability testing for 802.16m,” says the report.

    According to Jake Saunders, VP for forecasting at ABI Research, TD-LTE is the “wildcard.” “It was originally primed as an evolutionary technology for TD-SCDMA carrier China Mobile, but has been gaining interest from some WiMAX carriers. Both camps will be frantically trying to ramp up IC wafer manufacturing, product portfolios and population coverage. There will be considerable scrutiny over the next few years,” he said.

    Practice director Philip Solis added, “Some WiMAX service providers may switch from WiMAX to TD-LTE, but others are doing this partly as insurance and partly to assure investors of an alternate path so they may go forward with WiMAX. This is something for smaller greenfield service providers to consider. Large mobile operators will move forward with LTE whether it be on FDD or TDD spectrum. Clearwire can do both WiMAX and LTE if it wants to since it has the spectrum to do so.”

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  • New iPhone Ad Platform Extends Services—and Raises Questions

    The recent unveiling by Apple of its new iAd advertising platform extends the company’s array of inventive services for the iPhone, but also continues a distinctive collaboration-versus-competition dynamic between the giant technology trendsetter and its partner companies, according to iSuppli.

    “Thanks to the phenomenal success of the iPhone apps store and iTunes, Apple is in a unique position to partner with best-in-class companies and offer innovative services, products and apps to the market,” said Francis Sideco, principal analyst for wireless research at iSuppli.

    “The launch of one of these services, iAd, is a result of Apple’s recent purchase of Quattro Wireless and points to what appears to be an emerging modus operandi being employed by Apple – namely, a pattern of initial amicable association between Apple and its partner companies that then turns into a competitive relationship,” he said.

    In the smart phone market, Apple was the only player in the Top 5 to achieve a substantial increase and consistent gain throughout 2009, growing its share from 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 to 16 percent in the final quarter.

    In contrast, top-ranked Nokia saw only a 3 percent increase during the period and suffered a dip in the third quarter, while the share of No. 2 RIM fell from 21 percent to 19 percent during the year. Rounding out the Top 5 were HTC with 6 percent share and Motorola with a 4 percent share.

    The iAd platform joins a host of major changes in Apple’s updated iPhone OS 4. In the case of iAd, developers will be able to embed ads into their applications, allowing iPhone users to interact with the ad without leaving the app. Apple CEO Steve Jobs says iAd not only presents additional revenue opportunities for iPhone developers but also provides users with improved advertising quality and access to ads.

    According to iSuppli, while iAd is the progeny of Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless, Apple’s moves in the past have been less overt but nonetheless ended up pitting the giant against its former partners.

    “For instance, Apple partnered with Amazon.com to allow the Kindle app to run on the iPhone. Within a year or two, Apple now has launched its own iBook store for eBooks and other electronic publications. Prior to that, Apple originally partnered with Google Inc. for search and mapping capabilities on the iPhone, but Apple within two years achieved in-house capabilities for those functions and now, with iAd, is going after Google’s highly lucrative advertising business,” as the research group claims.

    As these developments illustrate, Apple is acquiring valuable domain knowledge that is allowing the company to enter into competition with some of its partners, iSuppli believes. And while Apple’s actions could be viewed as a reaction by the company to the moves of its partners, they also can set in motion possibly antagonistic relationships.

    “Should Apple continue to operate in this manner, the company might find it difficult in the future to form an association with best-in-class partners—connections in which friendly partnerships at the beginning alter and then deteriorate into aggressive rivalry,” said Sideco.