Nielsen: In US, Smartphones Now Majority of New Cellphone Purchases

According to Nielsen’s May survey of mobile consumers in the U.S., 38 percent now own smartphones. And 55 percent of those who purchased a new handset in the past three months reported buying a smartphone instead of a feature phone, up from 34 percent just a year ago.

Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months.

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Google sees 500,000 Android devices activated everyday

Google is activating half a million Android devices a day, a big jump in just the last couple months, a sign of growing momentum for the platform. Google’s VP of mobile Andy Rubin tweeted out the new milestone, saying activations are growing 4.4 percent week over week.

In early May, the company boasted that activations were up to 400,000 a day with 100 million cumulative device activations, representing 36 OEMS, 215 Carriers and 310 devices.

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Report: Apple Building Navigation Service to Rival Google Maps

New evidence suggests Apple is at work on its own mapping and navigation solution for the iOS platform. MacRumors reports that a new "Map Data" section discovered within Apple's iOS 5 update lists licenses from nine different third-party companies that provide location-enabled services.

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ABI: The True Potential of Mobile Advertising

According to an ABI research forecast, spending on mobile advertising is expected to boom over the next five years.

The amount spent on mobile advertising in 2010 was just $2 billion and by 2012 this figure, according to ABI, would be more than $7 billion. By 2016, the figure is expected to touch $24 billion only on mobile advertising. This is significant because currently, this figure relates to the amount spent on all forms of online advertising put together.

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Mobile Activities Rival PC for Smartphone Owners

Rising smartphone penetration is significantly changing the way people use their mobile devices, making activities convenient—even attractive—on the go that before were barely possible. Social media quickly became a major mobile growth category, and online video usage may be following suit.

Research from Google and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) conducted during the first half of 2011 in several countries around the world found internet usage via mobile is quickly becoming as important as internet usage via PC among those who own smartphones.

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comScore: Number of U.S. Mobile Display Advertisers More than Doubles in the Past Two Years

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results of a U.S. study on mobile advertising, which found that the number of advertisers using mobile display ad campaigns has more than doubled in the past two years, with mobile content and publishing accounting for half of all products advertised on mobile devices.

These findings and others will be presented in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Where, Inc. via a live, complimentary webinar The State of the U.S. Mobile Advertising Industry and What Lies Ahead on June 8. For more information and to register, please visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/679213504.

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ABC15 Three Screens Video

Wi-Fi Direct-Enabled Digital Televisions Will Approach 80 Million by 2015

The first applications to adopt Wi-Fi Direct include mobile PCs, mobile phones, and digital televisions (DTVs). These devices share a trait: they are the respective centers of the PC, CE, and mobile device clusters, and they ship in the hundreds of millions of devices annually. Wireless display of images and video is a major aim of Wi-Fi Direct, so the main display in most homes will be a key target. In-Stat's latest research report, Wi-Fi Direct: It's All About the Software, forecasts that by the year 2015 nearly 80 million DTVs will be Wi-Fi Direct-enabled.

Other details from the report include:

• Mobile PCs will adopt Wi-Fi Direct more quickly than any other application.
• Every PC, CE device and mobile phone that ships in 2014 with Wi-Fi silicon will be Wi-Fi Direct-enabled.
• Wi-Fi Direct-enabled device shipments will reach 173 million by 2011.

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