December 13, 2010

Android Dominates Smartphones at Verizon

Devices running Google's Android platform made up 80 percent of the smartphones Verizon Wireless sold in November, according to analysis by ITG Investment Research. The popularity of Android at Verizon appears to have cut into the sales of Research In Motion gadgets--a worrisome development for the BlackBerry maker, which has historically relied on Verizon for a large portion of its sales.


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December 10, 2010

Google Activating 300,000 Android Devices per Day

Google's vice president of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin, recently tweeted that the company is seeing 300,000 Android activations per day. That's up a lot from just four months ago, when Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the company had hit 200,000 Android activations per day.

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U.S. Mobile Advertising and Search Market Report - Penetration Levels are at the 90% Mark

Frost & Sullivan's new report "U.S. Mobile Advertising and Search Market" reveals that the U.S. mobile penetration levels are at the 90 percent mark. An increasing number of mobile subscribers are using various content services and applications on their devices, which opens up newer avenues for mobile advertising.

Penetration of next-generation mobile handheld devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs have opened up newer possibilities in mobile advertising. Adoption of mobile advertising by the nation's largest mobile operators and innovative MVNOs as well as entry of the online advertising leaders is a testament to the perceived potential of the market opportunity.

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iPad 2 Production Rumors Swirl

Apple's iPad got an iOS 4.2 update just in time to let the devices perform a few new tricks for the holidays this year, but exactly what the company's next generation of tablet hardware will be capable of is still largely a mystery. If the iPad follows suit with Apple's other iProducts, it should be due for a refresh in 2011, and a new report claims that the iPad 2 will be in production no later than February.


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iPad Sales to More Than Double Next Year

Apple will have sold 8.5 million iPads in the US by the end of this year, eMarketer estimates. That makes up the vast majority of total US tablet sales, at 88%.

iPad sales in particular and tablet sales overall will increase dramatically over the next two years. Nearly 20 million of Apple’s shiny touchscreen devices will be sold next year, an increase of 127%, and by 2012 sales will surpass 30 million. Meanwhile, the tablet market will diversify and the iPad’s share will decline somewhat, to 74% of the total by 2012.


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December 8, 2010

Local Mobile Ad Spending to Continue Dramatic Growth

U.S. local spending on the mobile channel is set to rise from $404 million this year to $692 million in 2011 and over $2 billion by 2014, BIA/Kelsey projects.

“We expect to see more bundling of mobile advertising by digital and local media companies, in an effort to lower the barriers for adoption by small and medium-sized businesses,” said Michael Boland, program director at BIA/Kelsey, in statement. “As a result, mobile advertising will move down market to SMB and mid-market segments, increasing the overall revenue opportunity and share of geotargeted ads. This down-market shift will be coupled with large advertiser evolution and adoption of mobile local ad distribution.”



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December 6, 2010

Apple Mobile Market Domination Extending to 2011: Report

Michael Walkley, a technology industry analyst with Cannacord Genuity, believes Apple will continue to dominate the global market for mobile devices in 2011.

“Based on continued strong sell-through trends for the iPad and the iPhone, we believe Apple will maintain both market and value share leadership in these fast growing markets through C2012,” Mr. Walkley said in a note to clients on Thursday.

Walkley expects the iPad’s ownership of the tablet PC market to drop from 76% in 2010 to 48% in 2011, though he argues Apple will still be positioned to take “well above 80%” of the profits for the tablet market both this year and next.

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Apple iPad, iPhone Sales Will Remain Strong Through Holidays: Analyst

Apple's holiday sales will remain strong, says an analyst from Ticonderoga Securities. While certainly no surprise given the company's performance throughout 2010, the new research note counterbalances some concerns about both the general weakness of the economy and analyst reports suggesting sales of iPads and other devices will underwhelm.

"With the powerful combination of Apple's iPad, iPhone 4, refreshed iPod/iPod Touch portfolio, the new MacBook Air and Apple TV, we believe Apple is positioned for a big holiday season this year," Brian White, an analyst with Ticonderoga Securities, wrote in a Nov. 29 research note. "Regardless of the overall strength during Black Friday and the holiday season at large, we believe Apple has the products that consumers demand."

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U.S. Mobile Ad Revenues To Reach Nearly $3 Billion By 2014

Images from BIA/Kelsey's U.S. Mobile Ad Revenue Forecast report.



comScore: Smartphones Now Used By 1 in 4 U.S. Mobile Subscribers

According to comScore, 60.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in October, up 14 percent from the preceding three month period. This represents one out of every four mobile subscribers.

RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 35.8 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.6 percent share (up 0.8 percentage points).

Google Android saw another month of strong growth, rising 6.5 percentage points to capture 23.5 percent of smartphone subscribers.

Despite losing share to Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow.

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December 1, 2010

Local Will Be Prime Driver Of Rise In Mobile Ad Spending

Analysts are feeling ever-more confident in the growth of mobile advertising. The latest comes from BIA/Kelsey, which is predicting that the U.S. mobile ad revenues will grow from $491 million last year to $2.9 billion in 2014. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 43 percent and is based on expectations for rising mobile search ads, display on both apps and mobile web sites and text messaging. But the big spending will come in the form of local ads, which now makes up less than half of the mobile ad market. That will change significantly by 2014.

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BlackBerry Users Now Consume More Mobile Data Than iPhone And Android Users

In the month of November, BlackBerry overtook Apple and its iOS in mobile internet usage in the U.S. But StatCounter, the researchers who compiled the numbers, said that those rankings didn’t bear out worldwide, where Symbian kept a comfortable lead in front of the competition.

Overall in the U.S., StatCounter says that BlackBerry OS accounted for 34.3 percent of all visits, compared to Apple’s iOS at 33 percent in November. It says Google’s Android is “rapidly gaining and has almost tripled internet market share” from 8.2 percent last November to 23.8 percent this year.

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