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Tag: market-data

  • Mobile Handset Industry Considers Recession to be Over

    According to recent iSuppli report, the mobile handset industry is proclaiming the end of the recession for the segment following an outstanding final quarter of 2009 and a projected substantial growth for smart phones in 2010.

    The report shows that the mobile handset industry closed 2009 with shipments of 1.15 billion handset units.

    While that number is down from the overall 2008 figure of 1.2 billion handsets, shipments in the fourth quarter of 2009 represented the culmination of an increasing growth pattern throughout all of last year. Compared to third-quarter shipments of 290 million, about 335 million mobile handsets shipped in the fourth quarter, up 15.5 percent.

    “Given the recovery of the market in the final quarter of 2009, and with Europe, Latin America and the Middle East/Africa regions doing exceptionally well during the period, the recession can be said to be officially over for the industry. The continued growth this year of total handsets—up a projected 11.3 percent to 1.3 billion units—further bolsters such a view,” iSuppli maintains.

    Among the various handset categories, smartphones are projected to expand 35.5 percent in 2010. According to the report, smartphone growth will be driven by a number of promising developments, including the introduction of entry-level smart-phones, enthusiasm from vendors across the mobile phone and PC industries, the prevalence of 3G network deployments and the promotion of data-centric services in mature markets.

    With handset shipments in the fourth quarter of 2009 amounting to approximately 257.6 million units, the Top 5 players accounted for a whopping 77 percent share of the total handset market.

    The report says that Nokia remained the leader of the handset market, shipping 126.9 million handsets during the period, giving it a 37.9 percent share of market. Runner-up Samsung, which has introduced its own smart-phone operating system, held the No. 2 spot with 20.6 percent share.

    The remainder of the Top 5 are rounded out by LG Electronics, in third place with 10.1 percent share; Sony Ericsson in fourth, with 4.4 percent share; and Chinese giant ZTE, whose impressive 77 percent growth from the earlier quarter vaulted it into fifth place, with a 4.0 percent share.

    A second Chinese handset manufacturer, Huawei, landed in seventh place after also finishing an outstanding quarter with 82.4 percent growth.

    “Together, the two Chinese companies indicate the strong momentum occurring in the emerging market as well as an increasing presence in Europe on their part with key operators,” said Tina Teng, iSuppli senior analyst.

  • Turbulence Ahead for Cloud Computing

    Cloud computing took a serious hit with Google’s exit from search business, and its subsequent service issues, in mainland China, announced Canalys.

    While cloud solutions will remain appealing for certain customers with limited international ambitions, the platform’s inherent security and access issues will herald a shift back to traditional software models, said the industry analyst group in a recently issued report.

    ‘The two biggest trends in the IT industry – the rise of cloud computing and China’s emergence as a global growth engine – have just collided with a bang,’ said Steve Brazier, President and CEO of Canalys.

    ‘The hacking of Google’s systems in China has demonstrated that security weaknesses in the cloud have moved from a possibility to an actuality.’

    Canalys maintains that legacy software companies that reposition themselves for local services, or at least a mixed model, stand to benefit the most from cloud computing flaws, as customers demand increased security and access controls: ‘Customers will want global solutions that help them decide what information is stored where, coupled with systems that function competently, even when Internet access is down or restricted,’ said Brazier.

    As companies have sensitive information across many domains – finance, HR, legal, R&D and marketing, among others – a security breach anywhere could have devastating and far-reaching effects. Likewise, the regulatory threat posed by the local political landscape in emerging countries will influence multinationals’ choice of software platform moving forward.

    ‘It would be extraordinarily naïve for a company to believe Google’s situation with China is unique,’ said Brazier. ‘All the US giants have struggled, while local Internet brands have snagged top positions across major areas, such as search, auctions and video sharing.’

    Late entry, language and cultural issues, such as failure to adapt to local market trading conditions, combined with site performance, have encouraged customers to stick with local solutions in China. Similarly, other emerging regions, such as the Middle East, Russia and Indonesia, are capable of making unilateral business decisions to the detriment of foreign companies, while the situation in India and Brazil – more stable for now – could change due to the influence of neighboring countries.

    According to Canalys, cloud computing will not disappear for some time, due to the continued support of US-based proponents, which have yet to see the model’s challenges in emerging markets. Smaller companies, more willing to live with risks, and public bodies, mainly restricted to national borders, will be less concerned about international access issues and local hacking threats.

    The future of cloud computing will be a key technology track at EMEA’s largest and most influential annual channel event, the Canalys Channels Forum, being held from 5-7 October at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona. This two-day, invitation-only event will feature senior one-to-one meetings, business-savvy keynotes, research into industry and channel trends, and expert-led debates among an audience of more than 500 executives from top vendors, distribution management, leading SMB resellers and Canalys analysts. More information about the event can be found at www.canalyschannelsforum.com.

  • Berg Insight: 894 Million Mobile Banking Users by 2015

    According to a new research report by Berg Insight, the worldwide number of users of mobile banking and related services is forecasted to grow from 55 million users in 2009 (at a CAGR of 59.2 percent) to reach 894 million users in 2015.

    Th research group notes that over the past year many of the leading players in both the telecom industry and the financial sector have intensified their efforts to bring financial services to the world’s unbanked population. According to the report, Asia-Pacific is expected to become the most important regional market, accounting for more than half of the total user base.

    Mobile banking is also anticipated to play a key role in bringing financial services to people in the Middle East and Africa. In Europe and North America, the technology will mainly serve as an extension of existing online banks as mobile handsets become more widely used for internet access. By 2015, Berg Insight forecasts that mobile banking will attract 115 million users in Europe and 86 million users in North America.

    “Mobile handsets are in an excellent position to become the primary digital channel for providers of banking and related financial services on emerging markets,” said Marcus Persson, Telecom Analyst at Berg Insight.

    “People who sign up for their first mobile subscription today will likely open their first bank account in the coming years and thus join the modern financial system. Mobile operators can play a vital role in this development and will have the opportunity to take an active part in the creation of some of tomorrow’s most important financial institutions based in Asia and Africa,” he added.

    In addition to traditional retail banking, the report also identifies international money transfer as an important revenue source for mobile industry players. Analysts forecast that 3–15 percent of the international money transfers currently handled by various formal or informal agent networks will be carried out using a mobile handset by 2015, generating US$ 1.2–6.2 billion in service revenues.

  • AT&T Reports Strong First-Quarter Earnings

    A day after Apple announced its record march quarter revenue, AT&T reported strong first-quarter earnings results highlighted by rapid growth in mobile broadband, further expansion of AT&T U-verse services and solid gains in IP-based and business services.

    For the Q1 2010, AT&T’s consolidated revenues totaled $30.6 billion, up $78 million, or 0.3 percent, versus the year-earlier quarter.

    Operating expenses were $24.6 billion versus $24.8 billion; operating income was $6.0 billion, up from $5.7 billion in the first quarter of 2009.

    The company’s operating income margin was 19.6 percent, up from 18.8 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

    First-quarter 2010 net income attributable to AT&T totaled $2.5 billion ($0.42 per diluted share), reflecting a previously disclosed noncash charge of $995 million, related to recently enacted changes in the tax treatment for the Medicare Part D subsidy. Excluding this charge, first-quarter earnings would have been $3.5 billion ($0.59 per diluted share). These results compare with net income of $3.1 billion, or $0.53 per diluted share, in the year-earlier first quarter.

    Record First-Quarter Subscriber Gain
    AT&T posted a net gain in total wireless subscribers of 1.9 million, the highest first-quarter total in the company’s history, to reach 87.0 million in service. According to the company, first-quarter net add growth reflects continued rapid adoption of smartphones and a host of connected devices such as eReaders, global positioning systems and alarm monitoring systems.

    Connected devices in service increased by 1.1 million in the quarter to reach 5.8 million, and retail postpaid net adds totaled 512,000 to reach 65.1 million.

    14.9 Percent Growth in Strategic Business Services Revenues
    Revenues from new-generation capabilities that lead AT&T’s most advanced business solutions — including Ethernet, VPNs, hosting, IP conferencing and application services — grew 14.9 percent versus the year-earlier quarter, continuing AT&T’s strong trends in this category.

    "We’re off to a great start to the year, and our fundamental outlook for the business continues to be quite positive,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer.

    Related articles
    Apple Announces Record March Quarter Revenue

  • Apple Announces Record March Quarter Revenue

    Apple reported financial results for its fiscal 2010 second quarter – its best non-holiday quarter ever. The company posted revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion ($3.33 per diluted share).

    The revenues were up 49 percent and profits were up 90 percent.

    Apple sold 2.94 million Macs during the quarter (33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter), 8.75 million iPhones (131 percent growth) and 10.89 million iPods (one percent decline).

    Gross margin was 41.7 percent, up from 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

    Steve Jobs said he was “thrilled” to report Apple’s best non-holiday quarter ever. He added that the company have several more “extraordinary products” in the pipeline for this year.

    Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, said that looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2010, they expect revenue in the range of about $13.0 billion to $13.4 billion.

  • IPTV Set-Top Boxes to Gain Increasing Foothold

    Set-Top Boxes sold into the up-and-coming Internet Protocol TV segment will ramp up in terms of shipments and revenue in the years to come, offering increasing competition to legacy products in the STB market, according to iSuppli.

    In the recent report iSuppli says STB equipment sold into the IPTV market is projected to grow to 58 million units in 2014, up from 19.4 million in 2009. Revenue will rise to $6.2 billion, up from $2.9 billion in 2009.

    For these IPTV STBs, which allow the delivery of television services over a high-speed digital network and provide guaranteed quality of service, the numbers translate into a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 25 percent for unit shipments and 16 percent for revenue.

    All told, IPTV STBs accounted for 14.7 percent of total set-top box unit shipments in 2009, and are expected to make up 29.1 percent of shipments in 2014.

    In order to fulfill the promise of exciting interactive applications held forth initially by the IPTV industry, iSuppli believes further innovation is needed to differentiate IPTV services from those offered by the cable and satellite providers.

    In comparison, the legacy STB market consisting of the cable, satellite and terrestrial segments will end 2009 with unit shipments of 132 million. Unit shipments for this market are projected to reach 199 million in 2014, rising at a CAGR of 8.6 percent for the forecast period.

    IPTV Players and their Crowded Playground
    According to iSuppli, the principal difference between legacy STBs and their IPTV counterparts lies in the way the boxes receive information: IP STB equipment receives video content over a broadband pipe via Internet Protocol data packets, while legacy boxes receive an RF-modulated signal. Furthermore, IP boxes do not require a tuner and demodulator, which are requirements for legacy boxes.

    With more than 60 vendors claiming to have an IPTV STB product, the IPTV equipment market remains highly fragmented. However, just 15 vendors supplied 92 percent of the market in 2009. Motorola Inc. was No. 1 with 32 percent market share, followed by Cisco Systems Inc. with a 14 percent share.

    Among companies involved in supplying the platform software for IPTV boxes, Microsoft Corp. held sway with its Mediaroom middleware, accounting for 25 percent of the market with 4.8 million STBs in 2009. Microsoft had three times the share of its closest rival—French-based Thomson SA with its SmartVision software.

    As in the PC industry, Microsoft is driving the technical requirements that will shape product offerings from silicon vendors and makers of STBs alike, iSuppli believes.

    Next-generation media processors will also ramp up in 2010. Newcomer Broadcom Corp. is expected to lay siege to Sigma Designs with its BCM7405 processor—recently certified for Mediaroom deployments—ending the advantageous position of Sigma Designs as sole provider of Mediaroom-certified processors.

    Nonetheless, Sigma Designs is expected to fire back, and its next-generation SMP8650 family of processors will benefit from the company’s incumbent position in many existing IP STB sockets.

  • TwinStrata Unveils Cloud Storage Enablement Strategy

    TwinStrata debuts today with its vision for intelligent storage cloudsolutions.

    Taking an innovative approach, the company is bringing to market cloud storage enablement software solutions to help mid-sized companies in a variety of industries address challenges related to protecting and managing the growth of business application data.

    Operational Challenges of Data Management
    Today’s IT data management teams are tasked with selecting solutions that maintain the integrity and availability of data, especially higher value data related to business critical applications. Storage-related solutions need to easily and quickly scale to accommodate future data growth and not require capital intensive upgrades when capacity limits are reached. They must support multiple data formats for all types of business applications. In addition, companies should understand the impact an application outage will have on each line-of-business or on the company as a whole in order to implement appropriate data recovery operations.

    Cloud Technology Ecosystems
    To help companies achieve business agility and efficiency, IT alignment and cost management, several ecosystems started by industry-leading vendors have emerged. EMC with its EMC Atmos Velocity Program and Amazon with its Amazon Web Services are each an example of an ecosystem of solution providers developing cloud enablement solutions that leverage their respective cloud services. These ecosystems will have a significant impact on storage cloud adoption.

    Corporations using solutions from these ecosystems benefit from the cloud. They can now instantly respond to changing business requirements by taking advantage of an adaptable infrastructure and adding resources as needed. Storage cloud infrastructures eliminate lengthy change management cycles when bringing new storage infrastructure online and optimize IT administrative processes to drive efficiency and improve staff productivity.

    "Cloud enablement solutions, like the one TwinStrata offers, will help accelerate corporate cloud storage adoption," said Terri McClure, a senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "Companies can realize the availability, security and performance characteristics of local storage, without the capital investment and overhead of housing and managing storage themselves."

    "TwinStrata is working with customers around the world and with industry-leading global technology companies to define and develop intelligent storage cloud architectures and solutions," said TwinStrata CEO & Co-Founder Nicos Vekiarides.

    "The EMC Velocity2 Atmos Partner Program demonstrates our commitment to deliver innovative storage solutions that address the growing needs of our partners seeking to leverage cloud infrastructure. We believe there is an opportunity and approach to cloud storage that delivers financial and functional benefits to both our Partners and the Customers they serve," said Mike Feinberg, Senior Vice President of EMC Cloud Infrastructure Group.

    "By making our cloud infrastructure accessible and allowing easy API integration, we enable our partners to develop cloud enablement solutions to help customers realize business agility, drive IT operational efficiency, and improve cost controls. We are pleased to work with TwinStrata to embrace and deliver real-world business value to our joint customers, globally."

    Intelligent Storage Cloud, Cloud Enablement Solutions
    Intelligent storage clouds consist of storage-as-a-service offerings combined with intelligent cloud storage enablement solutions. Cloud storage enablement solutions address the primary concerns that users have expressed regarding enterprise IT adoption of cloud storage solutions and deliver the following features:

    * Compute Anywhere™ application accessibility: on/off-premise, in the cloud
    * Non-disruptive integration with business applications
    * Support for all industry file systems and block-level access
    * Intelligent caching architecture that delivers local performance
    * Support for virtual and physical IT environments
    * Ease of deployment, ability to manage in self-service manner via UI, CLI and API
    * Local and cloud data copies, zero-footprint snapshots
    * Encryption for security
    * Bandwidth savings via caching, compression, deduplication
    * Support for multiple cloud providers, with data mobility across providers
    * Support for providers that offer SLAs for regulatory & compliance requirements

    About TwinStrata
    TwinStrata is a pioneer in the Cloud Storage Enablement (CSE) market with the industry’s first purpose-built architecture and software solution to enable Intelligent Storage Clouds (ISC). ISC deliver simple, affordable and secure storage solutions to enterprise environments. TwinStrata’s solutions address the business need for on-demand IT services, providing new levels of business agility, efficiency, IT alignment and cost management for protecting and managing the growth of business application data. For more information about TwinStrata, please visit www.twinstrata.com

  • Need for Converged Devices Makes a Case for Smartphones in India

    According to Frost & Sullivan, smartphones are expected to hit “a purple patch” in the Indian market, as consumers increasingly seek a single converged device to support multiple functionalities on the go. Smartphones cater to both individual and enterprise users due to their consumer- and productivity-centric approaches.

    Analysts claim that the application development community and mobile operating systems participants are the key enablers of smartphone ecosystem, wherein users prefer a single point of access and management of content. In this scenario, product innovation and the application portfolio will be the primary market growth drivers.

    "With Web 2.0 (social networking, microblogging) technologies gaining traction and the youth demographic keen on adopting smartphones, applications are expected to emerge as the key differentiating factor," says Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst Thejaswi Parameshwaran.

    "Touch screen technologies and customized interfaces in terms of innovative product features will also propel the market ahead."

    With the urban markets having matured in terms of feature phone usage, numerous mobile users in this demographic are looking to upgrade to a smartphone. This replacement market will be predominantly populated by the younger demographic, which are early adopters of technology and avid users of Web 2.0 technologies.

    "The smartphone ecosystem is looking to build a distinct identity in the application community with handset manufacturers, service providers, and operating system developers having content portals that enable consumers to access a wide variety of applications," notes Parameshwaran.

    "However, over 70 percent of the population consumes only voice services, and data services have not yet gained traction, which can slow down the adoption rates of smartphones."

    To compound participants’ issues, the existing data bandwidth is insufficient to support data-intensive applications. They are hoping to remedy this issue and support smartphone-based applications by deploying high-speed 3G networks, as Frost & Sullivan claims.

    According to the report, in a highly competitive market where handset manufacturers and service providers vie for subscribers, a comprehensive value proposition is likely to be the factor that will tip the scales. Both these stakeholders will be aiming to lure consumers with an end-to-end service offering, significant investment in product R&D, and attractive revenue sharing agreements with content developers.

    Meanwhile, with the emergence of open source operating systems, there is a paradigm shift toward a collaborative ecosystem, wherein participants leverage each other’s expertise. This has fostered an environment of strategic alliances that will help offer a one-stop shop for handsets, data plans, and the point of access for an application ecosystem.

    "All participants of the ecosystem will have to collaborate to develop an end-to-end value proposition that will engage consumers and thereby, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction," observes Parameshwaran.

  • Scalado Nominated for the Swedish Great Export Prize

    Scalado, an imaging software company that focuses on the wireless device industry, announced that it has been nominated for the Swedish Trade Council’s Great Export Prize.

    Scalado has developed unique imaging technology for camera phones which is currently embedded in over 500 million mobile phones. This year the company’s imaging product will be present in every third manufactured phone.

    Sami Niemi, Co-Founder and CTO of Scalado gave us a demonstration of their technology at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

    During the past year Scalado expanded in both the US and Asia, including a strategic partnership with Qualcomm Incorporated, the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones and networking equipment.

    The Great Export Prize is awarded by the Swedish Trade Council to a Swedish company that has had great success with its exports in recent years. The winner will receive the prize directly from the hand of the King of Sweden in April in Stockholm.

    According to Swedish Trade Council, the Great Export Prize is awarded to the company that has:
    • Demonstrated strong development of its exports or foreign sales over recent years, with success on several markets
    • Demonstrated positive development of added value, organic growth and job creation in its Swedish operations
    • Developed a strong concept in market offers or marketing
    • Increased sales in combination with good profitability

  • Femtocell Base Stations Poised for Spectacular Growth

    The research group iSuppli says that the ecosystem surrounding femtocells, or cellular base stations that improve indoor wireless coverage, is headed toward critical mass among all major nodes of the wireless supply chain and will vault into explosive growth after reaching a decisive watershed this year.

    According to iSuppli’s projections, unit shipments of femtocells will more than triple this year, rising to 1.9 million, up from 571,000 in 2009. A period of phenomenal expansion then will follow, with shipments reaching 7.2 million units in 2011, up 289 percent from 2010.

    Shipments will rise by 232 percent to reach 23.9 million units in 2012 and by a whopping 657 percent to hit 39.6 million units in 2013.

    “Throughout the wireless supply chain, companies are busy mobilizing to provide solutions for femtocells, which resemble Wi-Fi routers in appearance,” said Francis Sideco, principal analyst for wireless research at iSuppli.

    “Instead of enabling wireless local area networks, however, femtocell base stations improve 3G coverage inside buildings or homes—locations where wireless signals tend to be weak because of building materials blocking the signal or the site’s distance from a cell tower.”

    Among participant nodes, Tier 1 entities in the United States and major global operators like Vodafone Group plc in the United Kingdom have launched femtocell solutions. Commercial deployments also are being launched by an increasing number of carriers around the world.

    In addition to carriers, several device manufacturers are firming up their femtocell positions after recently announcing the selection of England-based company picoChip to supply the key baseband chipset components for their products.

    Femtocells likewise are being evaluated by chipset suppliers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which are examining entry strategies for breaking into the market, as iSuppli reminds.

    According to Sideco, given the inherent use cases and environmental requirements of indoor deployments, self-optimizing networks are essential to the success of femtocells.

    “While technical and commercial challenges remain, femtocells are proving to be viable solutions for players in the wireless industry—especially mobile network operators—seeking to optimize their resources in providing seamless wireless coverage inside indoor environments,” says iSuppli.