According to TeleGeography, international demand for bandwidth grew 42% in 2004, with the largest upswing in usage coming from Asian nations. 2004 marked the second consecutive annual upswing in demand, the firm said, after carriers added 62% more capacity in 2003.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative prepared an annual report on global piracy. 52 countries are said to have intellectual property protection problems. Ukraine remained the only country designated a “priority foreign country”. Priority watch list in 2005 consists of Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela. The Bahamas, European Union, Poland, Taiwan and Korea were taken off the priority list and placed on the watch list. China, Israel and Venezuela were elevated to the priority list for 2005.
74 mln digital cameras were shipped in 2004, IDC says. Canon was #1 with 17.1% market share, Sony was #2 with 16.7%, Kodak was #3 with 11.8%. Shipments of point-and-shoot cameras were 71.5 mln units, compared with 47.93 mln in 2003, for growth of 49.2%.
Bill Gates told Microsoft software is currently in 25 car models from 13 manufacturers to attendees of Microsoft Global Automotive Summit.
60% of manufacturers surveyed by Datamonitor are already working on RFID projects. 90% of manufacturers surveyed said their next RFID project will be based on systems and data integration. 90% of IT executives surveyed said grid computing was of no relevance anywhere in their product life cycles, and 80% say that utility computing is of no use in resource planning or supply chain execution.
April 2005 browser market share survey by Janco Associates shows Firefox Web browser increasing its share to 10.28%. Microsoft Internet Explorer is still an undisputed leader with 83.07%. Mozilla suite is used by 3.81% of the users, Netscape, AOL, MSN Explorer and Opera browser are all below 1% market share with 0.92%, 0.85%, 0.67% and 0.41% respectively. Looking at the past year, Firefox went from virtually 0% in February 2004 to 50 mln downloads by the end of April 2005.
Digital camera shipments will continue to be strong through 2006, reaching 94 mln units. However, growth will slow in 2007. By 2009, shipments will decline to 82 mln units, according to IDC. Average selling prices for cameras will fall from 2004 level of $340 to $295 by the end of 2005 and $200 by 2009.
US digital music player sales will grow 35% in 2004 to 18.2 mln units, according to Jupiter Research. The growth will remain above 10% for the next few years, with annual sales hitting 29.7 mln units. The installed base will then reach 56.1 mln units, compared with 16.2 mln now. 90% of US consumers have 1,000 or fewer songs in their digital-music collections, and 60% have less than 200.
67% of US households have at least one mobile phone, according to a 5,600 household survey from Forrester Research. Single-phone households are currently a declining minority, and households with four or more mobile phones have grown at a rate of 57% in 2004. The top three mobile carriers will own seven out of 10 mobile households: Cingular+AT&T Wireless (28%), Verizon (27%), and Sprint/Nextel (15%). Despite a move by providers to add features like digital cameras and color screens to their phones, consumers’ priorities when purchasing a phone have not shifted over the past two years. Basic features like price, battery life, and ease of use continue to be most important features to consumers. Less than 10% of subscribers says that a camera is important in their phone purchase decision.
While basic features are most important to consumers when choosing a phone, wireless data functions, such as the ability to access email and share photos, are becoming increasingly important. 20% of consumers say that having data capabilities is important when purchasing a new phone, a 39% increase over 2002. In 2004, the youngest age category in Forrester’s survey (18 to 24 years) surpassed 25- to 34-year-olds as the age group that is most likely to have a mobile phone. The only age group below 50% penetration for mobile phones is the 65 and older age group. Prepaid users have doubled in the past two years, reaching close to 11% of mobile phone consumers in 2004.
Financial ads offering investment advice, credit assistance, loans, and other financial services accounted for 20% of the 97.1 bln online display ads served in March 2005, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Web media ads accounted for 19% of online display ads. Retail goods and services marketers accounted for 14%. Telecoms were responsible for 10% of online ads. Travel ads represented 7% of the online impressions.
China’s mobile phone market grew 14% in 2004, Gartner says. Mobile phone makers sold 68 mln units in China, the world’s biggest market, accounting for about 12% of 2004 global unit sales. Nokia became market leader and saw its market share grow to 19.7% last year from 15% in 2003, overtaking former #1 Motorola, whose share dropped to 12.1% from 17%. Samsung retained the #3 position, rising to 11.9% from 10.5%. China’s largest mobile operator, Ningbo Bird, saw its share drop to 8.6% from 10%, while the #2 domestic firm, TCL Communication, fell to 7.2% from 9.7%.
Americans’ incomes rose by 0.5% in March 2005, the best showing in three months, and they used the extra money to boost consumer spending by 0.6%, according to US Department of Commerce.
BlogPulse, celebrating the 10 million blog milestone, released the list of top 10 most quoted news sources:
In 2005 only 42% of e-commerce retailers responded within 24 hours, down from a high of 63% in 2002, according to research from Hornstein Associates.
The number of court-authorized wiretaps jumped 19% in 2004. Federal and state judges approved 1,710 applications for wiretaps of wire, oral or electronic communications, San Francisco Chronicle writes.
About 125 mln consumers will be watching television on their mobile phone in 2010. Handset makers will sell 130,000 TV phones in 2005, rising to 83.5 mln by 2010, according to Informa.
Internet Advertising Bureau said that Internet ad revenue of $9.6 bln in 2004 compared with ad revenue in 2003 of $7.27 bln and exceeded the previous revenue record of 2000 by nearly 20%. Q4 2004 revenue grew to $2.69 bln, the highest level for a three-month period. eMarketer predicted online ad growth of 33.7% in 2005 to $12.7 bln, raising a previous estimate of $11.5 bln for the year. eMarketer had estimated 2004 ad revenue at $9.5 bln.
Paid search listing revenue jumped 40% to $3.9 bln, display advertising such as banners rose 19% to $1.8 bln and rich media such as video ads grew 10% to just under $1 bln, according to the IAB. Online classified ads grew 18% to $1.7 bln.
According to Forrester Research and reported by Tekrati, 20.1 mln US households will listen to satellite radio and 12.3 mln US households will use their MP3 players to listen to audio podcasts by 2010. Satellite radio reached 4.5 mln subscribers by the end of 2004, up more than 150% from 2003. Podcasting will see significant growth by 2010 - reaching 12.3 mln households - as MP3 adoption climbs and broadband reaches 62% of households.