Online travel grew 25% YTY to $5.1 bln in June 2005, according to comScore Media Metrix. Hotels and resorts saw a traffic increase of 9% to 34.9 mln visitors in June 2005. InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott were among the Web’s highest-gaining properties for June, with 21 and 18% visitation gains, respectively. ComScore also noted a bump in traffic to map sites, led by MapQuest, with 45.7 mln visitors in June, Yahoo! Maps, with 21.3 mln, and MSN MapPoint, with 5 mln.

According to Synovate, 72% of Americans view the worst cell phone habit as unnecessarily loud conversations in public places, while 65% say the worst e-mail habits is sending along chain e-mail and using poor grammar.

Electronic system design in the US is expected to drive 33.5% of global semiconductor purchasing in 2005, amounting to $58.7 bln worth of chip sales for the year, according to iSuppli.

64% of the Chinese embedded system developers are currently using the ARM architecture for their embedded system development, the nearest competitor is being used by only 21% of designers, with this number increasing to 71% when respondents were asked which microprocessor architecture they were planning to use in the next 2 years.

Satellite radio subscriptions will top 46.8 mln by 2014. The yearly revenue will reach $7.6 bln by 2014, Kagan Research said.

The average variable interest rate for credit cards has climbed to 12.96%, up from 12.12% in 2004, according to Consumer Action.

Worldwide online poker revenue jumped to more than $1 bln in 2004, up from $365 mln in 2003 and is expected to hit $2.4 bln in 2005, according to Christiansen Capital Advisors.

Yankee Group puts mobile commerce transactions worth over $1.2 bln in Europe in 2009, up from $243 mln in 2004 while transactions in Asia will increase to $1.7 bln in 2009 up from $370 mln in 2004.

54% of the respondents to Deutsche Bank ad survey reported purchasing online media less than two months in advance of a campaign, compared to 50% in Q1 2005. Just 5% said they bought Web media more than 6 months in advance, compared to 7% in Q1 2005.

The worldwide mobile phone market showed signs of recovery from Q1 2005 due to impressive shipments of entry-level mobile phones to both developing and mature markets. According to IDC, worldwide mobile phone shipments totaled 188.7 mln units in Q2 2005, increasing 7.3% fro, Q1 2005 and 16.3% from Q2 2004.

AOL found that 70% of online Hispanics say that using the Internet is the best way to compare prices. In 2004 just 59% of online Hispanics said that. 63% of respondents said they go online for advice about purchases, compared to 56% in 2004. 52% of online Hispanics connect via broadband at home.

Western European governments will invest $49 bln in information technologies in 2009, according to IDC. This compares to $38 bln in 2004. Government IT spending in Western Europe will grow at an average 5.3% between 2004 and 2009, compared with 4.5% for the total IT market. Local authorities will grow from $18.7 bln in 2004 to $24.8 bln in 2009, a CAGR of 5.8%. Over the same period central government spending will grow 4.8%.

In-Stat research shows that just under half of the US residential market has purchased multiple telecommunications services as a package from a single provider, up from just one-third in 2004. However, the potential for growth of bundled services is only tepid at best, with just 14% of non-subscribers expecting to adopt them in 2006.

Providers typically scale discounts so that the more services that are purchased, the greater the savings. This strategy appears to be working, as 50% of respondents indicated that they purchase bundled services for the lower price. Significant revenue opportunities remain to further expand average revenue per user; however, new approaches are necessary to entice non-subscribers. Internet service was more often included in a bundle than local phone service or cable TV among survey respondents. This is interesting for the future of IP-based services such as Voice over IP (VoIP) and IP-based video services.

According to IDC, broadband penetration in Western Europe will continue to surge in coming years. By 2009, 46% of Western European households will have broadband access, compared to 20% at the end of 2004. By 2009, there will be more than 92 mln broadband connections, up from 40 mln at the end of 2004. 83% of these will be provided to the residential market. In 2009, basic broadband access services will represent a $37 bln revenue opportunity in Western Europe.

In 2005, shipments of LCD TVs are likely to soar to 18.8 mln units, which is an 87% rise compared to 2004, said iSuppli.

39.1% of respondents to BURST! Media survey ages 24 years and younger say the Internet is the primary way they listen to music, and another 9.3% say it will be in the future. 31.2% of respondents 24 years and younger say the Internet is the primary way they play games, and 11.6% say it will be in the future. Respondents 24 years and younger are also more likely than all other age segments (53.3% vs 27.6%) to say they use the Internet to watch movies and other video programming.

52.3% say they use the Internet to listen to music, and 50.2% say they use it to play games. Teens and those between 18-24 years are much more likely than other age segments to say they use the Internet for these activities - 76.5% of respondents 24 years or younger say they listen to music over the Internet, and 65.4% say they play Internet games.

India’s software and business service industries are expected to grow 32% between March 2005 and March 2006 from $17.2 bln between March 2004 and March 2005.

Internet scams (auction scan, identity theft, Internet lotteries, sweepstakes winnings) top the list of fraud complaints by older Americans, who lost $152 mln to con artists in 2004, FTC reported. Internet-based scams are growing and now account for about 41% of fraud complaints the Federal Trade Commission receives from people over 50.