Business News Holding

Tag: market-data

  • HD Content Helps Freesat Double Sales


    Freesat doubled sales of its satellite packages in the last quarter of 2008.

    Emma Scott, MD of the UK’s free-to-air digital satellite television service, said high definition content from the BBC and ITV have helped drive sales.

    Since the service launched in May 2008, over 200,000 sales have been recorded, with 100,000 of those coming in the months since September.

    "Freesat is able to offer incredible HD with no subscription," said Scott.

    "We’re thrilled that both the BBC and ITV are investing more in HD programming in 2009.

    Scott said key goals in 2009 include increasing Freesat’s product range and distribution by the quality and choice of channels and services available, and the anticipated launch of IPTV services, like BBC iPlayer onto Freesat later this year.

  • Slower Growth Expected In IP Contact Center Market


    Global economic problems will cause a slowdown in spending in the IP contact center (IPCC) market in 2009, according to Infonetics Research.

    The communications market research firm reports that while the overall Unified Communications and IPCC markets will experience a downturn, the IPCC and communicator segments will weather the economic downturn better than others.

    Infonetics said sales of UC products ended mixed in 2008, with unified messaging platform sales up and communicator software sales flat.

    Matthias Machowinski, analyst, Infonetics Research

    Overall, the IPCC market finished 2008 up 37 per cent over 2007, with many vendors reporting robust sales, particularly in Asia Pacific.

    Worldwide, businesses bought USD $851 million in IP contact center equipment in 2008, up 37 per cent from USD $622 million in 2007, based on the report.

    The 2008 numbers are based on actual sales numbers for the first half of the year and projections for the second half.

    Current economic conditions make repeating this level of activity virtually impossible.

    Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research’s directing analyst for enterprise voice and data, said the communicator market continues to be fluid.

    He said growth was not yet following established patterns and market share positions were shifting one period to the next as PBX vendors battle each other and Microsoft.

    "It’s an exciting market to watch, and one that should thrive in 2009, even as the overall enterprise telephony market declines due to the economic environment," he said.

    "Similarly, the IPCC market will slow down in 2009, but should do relatively well as customers find IP contact centers, self service, and automation cost effective ways to deliver on customer service."

    Other report highlights:

    • In 1H08, over a million IPCC seats were sold worldwide
    • Avaya still leads the IPCC market by far in 1H08, but lost share to Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent
    • Nortel takes the lead in unified messaging license market share in 1H08, while Avaya maintains its lead in revenue market share; Cisco is now a close 3rd for both

  • Broadsoft Strengthens Position With Sylantro Purchase


    VoIP applications provider, BroadSoft, has acquired competitor Sylantro Systems for an undisclosed sum.

    BroadSoft provides VoIP application software designed to enable service providers to deliver hosted telephony and multimedia services to businesses and consumers.

    It recently launched a hosted unified communications service in conjunction with Microsoft.

    Sylantro offers server software for hosted IP communication services across fixed, mobile, and cable networks.

    Sylantro’s Synergy and Web services software provide a platform for creating converged services for businesses and consumers.

    The company recently announced compatibility of its Synergy platform with Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud.

    The deal is being seen as a way for BroadSoft to eliminate a competitor while building its market position in VoIP applications.

    BroadSoft provides VoIP applications to eight of the top 10 and 14 of the top 25 largest carriers worldwide, including Korea Telecom, KPN, SingTel, Sprint, Telefonica de Espana, Telstra, T-Systems and Verizon.

    Sylantro customers include AT&T, China Netcom, QWEST and Swisscom, among others.

    BroadSoft said it intends to support Sylantro’s Synergy platform through its direct sales force and authorized Sylantro and BroadSoft partners.

  • Snom Favors Italy Over UK For Expansion


    The VoIP phone maker and developer Snom Technology is making a push into Italy and opening an office in Milan.

    In what could be a barometer of the current state of Europe’s economies, the German company ruled out a move to the UK.

    Heike Cantzler, marketing manager for Snom Technology, said both the UK and Italy were considered for the expansion.

    She told voip.biz-news that both Italy and the UK had very active Web markets – which had made the decision about where to expand difficult.

    Ultimately, concerns over the UK’s economic situation and the perception that the Italian market was more receptive to new technology, tipped the balance in Italy’s favor.

    "The financial problems in the UK are worse than in Italy," said Cantzler.

    "The UK and US economies have big problems. With the rest of Europe, we are still waiting to see what will happen.

    "Maybe next year will be hard but at the moment we do not feel any difference."

    Snom develops and manufacturers VoIP telephones based on an open standard for enterprise communications.

    It employs 50 people worldwide, with offices in Germany, Italy, the US and China.

    In common with other VoIP industry businesses, Cantzler said a recession was likely to benefit Snom as companies sought ways to reduce costs.

    She said that as Snom phones can be operated with a large number of compatible IP-PBX that support SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), they offer customers a wider choice for enterprise communication systems.

    In October, the Berlin-based company launched the Snom 820, a VoIP business telephone with a high-resolution TFT color display.

    Cantzler said the 820 typified Snom’s philosophy of adding as many features to products while keeping prices down.

    "The 820 is the only phone worldwide – aside from Microsoft’s phones – that integrates with Microsoft Outlook," she said.

    "This is really interesting because the Microsoft phone is one that is very expensive and very difficult to handle. Even Microsoft developers tell us that they use a Snom phone because it’s easier."

    Praise indeed.

  • NICE Secures VoIP Deal With Alibaba.com


    The Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba.com, has placed an order for NICE SmartCenter solutions for two of its VoIP contact centers.

    The NICE solution is to provide Alibaba.com with a quality management solution for improving customer service agent performance, training effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.

    Headquartered in Hangzhou, Alibaba.com has offices in more than 30 cities across mainland China as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Europe and the United States. It recently expanded its business to markets in India, Japan, and Korea.

    The company offers business-to-business services that connect buyers and suppliers from around the world.

    Andy Li, vice president of Alibaba.com said the NICE SmartCenter would provide them with the ability to enhance customer satisfaction and drive comprehensive business performance improvements.

  • Palm Gets $100m Lifeline Ahead Of Nova Launch


    Palm has secured a USD $100 million equity lifeline from Elevation Partners just a few weeks before it unveils its new Nova operating system.

    Faced with mounting losses and weak smartphone sales, the success of the new operating system could very well decide the company’s fate.

    The equity investment by Elevation Partners, which already holds a large stake in the handset maker, will help underwrite the cost of launching Nova and the first line of products to run on it.

    Palm has revealed little about the new operating system but reports suggest it will be pitched between RIM’s enterprise-oriented Blackberrys and Apple’s more multi-media iPhones.

    Palm just posted a loss of USD $506 million in its fiscal second quarter and saw both its revenues and the number of smartphones sold drop.

    Earlier this month, Palm announced that Douglas C. Jeffries had been appointed as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

    Previously chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries will join Palm in January as replacement for Andy Brown.

    Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, which also counts rock star Bono among its investment team, was in no doubt about the potential for Palm.

    "We believe that Palm is in a position to transform the cell phone industry, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to make this additional investment in the company," he said.

    There are many who seriously doubt that.

  • Blu-ray Growing In Popularity – Except With Yahoo


    It’s fitting that after a roller-coaster year for Blu-ray the high-def format should end 2009 on a high AND a low.

    With sales in the US encouraging, a poll by Zogby International shows that Blu-ray players are one of the most wanted holiday gifts this season for HDTV owners.

    The players are only beaten by consumers looking for a second HDTV.

    Overall, Blu-ray players received 30 per cent of the vote, beating other popular gifts such as GPS systems, Nintendo Wii, and MP3 players.

    On a low note was the decision by Yahoo to put Blu-ray at number three in its year-end Best and Worst Tech Products list.

    A key complaint about the format was the continued high price of discs despite the plumetting cost of players.

    Yahoo also wasn’t happy with the slowness of the technology, including its lengthy boot-up time.

    The Zogby results were part of an online poll conducted between December 2-4 which polled 1,726 HDTV owners asking them which gift they would like to receive this holiday season.

    Of those who responded, 66 per cent indicated they would be purchasing titles for themselves.

    More than half the respondents (55 per cent) said they would be purchasing titles for friends and family who owned Blu-ray Disc players.

    Not surprisngly given its early sales figures, the poll also found that The Dark Knight is the most anticipated title this holiday season, followed by
    Mamma Mia, Wall-E, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Hancock.

    Reports suggest that sales of Blu-ray titles in the US and UK are picking up well.

    Figures for the UK show that sales reached 462,500 units in November, an increase of 165 per cent over the previous month.

    While final December numbers aren’t available until January, initial sales are encouraging – helped considerably by the success of The Dark Knight.

    A total of 6.5 Million units have been sold in Europe to date (up 320 per cent), with the market share expected to double next year to 6 per cent.

    So far, roughly 800,000 stand-alone Blu-ray Disc players have been sold in Europe, but that number is expected to triple for next year, up to 2.5 Million
    .

  • Memory Cards Earn Best Handset Accessory Revenue Return


    Memory cards provide the greatest revenue of all mobile phone add-ons, according ABI Research.

    This is despite cellular handset accessories such as chargers and batteries shipping far more units in what is today a USD $58 billion industry.

    Driven by the photo, audio and video demands of media-centric handsets and smartphones, these memory cards, largely from third-party suppliers such as SanDisk, will see a 17 per cent compound annual growth rate in shipments over the years to 2013.

    Industry analyst Michael Morgan said that of all accessories, memory cards deliver the best revenue return.

    "In fact, as production has outstripped demand the market is currently oversupplied, leading to a 60 per cent year-over-year fall in per-Megabyte prices," he said.

    "However, the memory capacity of the cards being sold is always increasing, and the resulting higher Megabyte volumes more than offset the decline in ASP."

    Handset makers have been putting inexpensive low-capacity cards into smartphone and media phone boxes for some time.

    Morgan said there is currently a point of friction between handset vendors and carriers: the operators want all memory cards out of the box, preferring to sell higher-capacity cards separately.

    "The challenge for mobile operators is that subsidizing handset accessories means losing some of the high margins that they earn through the sales of these products," he said.

    "But subsidies also mean that many more subscribers will have handset accessories such as memory cards, and will be more likely to use mobile music services or download songs, leading to higher data ARPUs for operators."

  • Nimbuzz Strikes Deal With Spice Mobile


    Nimbuzz has agreed a distribution deal with Indian telecoms company Spice Mobiles.

    As a result Spice Mobile handsets will now have the Nimbuzz application pre-installed.

    Nimbuzz is a mobile instant messaging, (geo) presence and VoIP provider whose software allows users to chat, message and send files on the go.

    The deal also includes Spice Mobiles becoming a major distribution partner to join Nimbuzz’s global Manufacturer Affiliate Program.

    Spice Mobiles has approximately 25,000 retail outlets.

    Nimbuzz CEO, Evert-Jaap Lugt, said they had subscribers in over 200 countries and were growing at a rate of 20,000 new users per day.

    Nimbuzz CEO Evert_Jaap Lugt

    The Spice Mobiles deal is a global contract. In addition to India, pre-installed Spice Mobiles devices will be sold in other APAC territories.

    "This deal ensures significant market penetration for Nimbuzz across the APAC territories and we will be working closely with Spice Mobiles to encourage future shipment of new handsets,” said Lugt.

    Gartner expects India’s mobile user base of around 300 million to reach 737 million by 2012.

    Price Waterhouse Coopers reports the Indian mobile VAS market will reach USD $2 billion by the end of 2008 and expect it to account for 18 per cent of operator revenue by 2010.

    Spice Mobiles CEO, Kunal Ahooja, said the Indian market was experiencing soaring mobile usage and penetration.

  • Smartphones To Buck Global Mobile Sales Fall


    IDC forecasts that global mobile phone shipments will fall 2.2 per cent next year, the first decline since 2001.

    However, the researchers expect smartphone sales to outperform the market next year, growing an estimated 8.9 per cent.

    This follows a 27 per cent increase in smartphone shipments this year, which helped boost worldwide growth to an estimated 7.3 per cent in 2008.

    IDC does not expect the downturn in mobile phone shipments to stretch past 2009.

    Its report states that by 2010, the worldwide mobile phone market should show signs of improvement as economic recovery plans start to take effect.

    IDC forecasts 7.7 per cent volume growth in 2010 and a return to double-digit growth in the following years.