Households subscribing to pure-play subscription VoIP services, who are either replacing or complementing existing traditional landline services, increased from 2.2 mln in Q1 2006 to 2.9 mln in Q2 2006. Vonage continues to own the largest market share of pure-play subscription VoIP consumers with a 53.9% share. Verizon VoiceWing and AT&T CallVantage were tied for second place, each securing a 5.5% share. SunRocket followed with a 4% share, while Lingo claimed a 2.6% share. NetZero Voice rounded out the top five with a 2.5% share.

Photoresist sales in the semiconductor industry continued growing for the fourth straight year in 2005, reaching more than $1 bln. Photoresist revenue for the year grew 7.9%, Gartner reports.

Stepper sales will expand to $6.4 bln in 2006. Just as in 2005, steppers will outperform the overall equipment market in 2006, Gartner says.

Nielsen//NetRatings published the list of search engine market shares for May 2006.

Revenue from the top 20 telecom vendors worldwide rose by 8% in 2005, to $232 bln, though growth slowed in the second half of the year. Nokia led with $41.6 bln, but Tellabs posted the biggest rise, at 60%, Gartner reports.

Almost 20% of UK online population (2,881,000 users total) during the second week of the 2006 FIFA World Cup visited a sports or gambling website. Sports and gambling websites averaged a Unique Audience of 2.71 mln in the first two weeks of the World Cup compared to 2.10 mln in the four weeks preceding the World Cup, Nielsen//NetRatings says.

63% of respondents to a Harris Interactive poll said they feel firefighters have “very great” prestige, while 58% said doctors do. Other professions that were seen as having very great prestige included: nurses (55%), scientists (54%), teachers (52%) and military officers (51%). The occupations seen by the fewest people as having very great prestige were: real-estate brokers (6%), stockbrokers (11%), business executives (11%), actors (12%), union leaders (12%) and journalists (12%). Actors were seen by the largest percentage of people (37%) as having “hardly any prestige at all,” followed by real-estate brokers at 32%.

On the 13th of June, 2006, the night the Australian team beat Japan by 3 - 1 in FIFA World Cup, a record number of 200,000 Australians flocked to key World Cup sport and news websites, representing a quadrupling of traffic in the span of one week, Nielsen//NetRatings reports. An online audience of 155,000 people visited the same selection of sites in preparation for the big match against Brazil.

About half of summer vacationers in the survey said they have an approximate budget, but that they are flexible. However, 41% of respondents who are traveling this season said they have no budget and only 7% said they “budget an exact amount and stick to it.” When asked what has had the greatest impact on the amount of money set aside for summer travel, about 40% of respondents said gas prices have had an impact on their travel plans, compared with 25% who cited personal debt. Despite the reported impact of gas prices, when asked which ways they were likely to try to attempt to save on summer travel, only 18% of vacationers said they are traveling a shorter distance than they normally would and 8% said they are postponing travel, Wall Street Journal reports.

Strategy Analytics published an overview of mobile phone market shares from Q2 2005 to Q2 2006.

Value added managed services (VAMS) are expected to drive overall growth and unveil opportunities for vendors in Asia-Pacific. VAMS, such as managed converged networks and hosted application services, are expected to grow by 18.5% in 2006 reaching $6.4 bln. The overall enterprise managed services market is growing at a CAGR of 16.3% with an estimated value of $17.8 bln in 2006. Managed network services will continue to be the largest VAMS engagement in 2006. IDC expects growth in 2006 to be close to 18% reaching $2.7 bln. Web hosting, managed application performance and hosted application management will follow with value worth $870 mln, $565 mln and $485 mln respectively.

Global mobile phone shipments grew a healthy 26% YTY, to reach 235 mln units in Q2 2006, according to Strategy Analytics. Nokia and Motorola dominated sales and accounted for a record 55% combined share during the quarter.

Home office households have historically been early adopters of advanced technology, and this pattern continues with VoIP communications. The number of US households with income-generating or corporate home offices are more than twice as likely to implement VoIP in the next 12 months compared with households in general, IDC says. Currently, 39.1% of corporate home offices and 23.7% of home-based businesses are interested in or using VoIP. In contrast, only 10.8% of households without home offices are VoIP aware.

According to Jon Peddie Research, Integrated Graphics Chipsets now account for 65.1% of the total graphics market. The report notes that mobile computers continue to grow in relation to the computer industry as a whole. Shipments of graphics devices for mobile computers now represent 25.7% of the market. In total 74.9 mln graphics chips and IGCs shipped in Q1 2006.

Worldwide shipments of smart mobile devices rise 55% YTY in Q2 2006. Handheld segment plummets 33%, overtaken by wireless handhelds for the first time. Smart phone shipments increase by 75% compared to one year ago. Nokia retains overall market lead, Motorola leapfrogs RIM, Sharp, Palm to take second place. Symbian leads in OS share, with 67%, a YTY rise, but a sequential fall. Microsoft in second with share at 15%, ahead of RIM on 6%.

In 2005 video and music downloads combined to generate $1.4 bln in sales and could reach $2 bln in 2006, according to Research and Markets. In video downloads alone, revenues will reach $2.6 bln by 2009, according to projections by In-Stat.

Gartner says server shipments in Q2 2006 grew by 12% compared to Q2 2005, to 2 mln units. Hewlett-Packard stretched its lead with growth of 14%. Dell stayed second with growth of 2%.

The Diffusion Group forecasts that Linux will surpass SymbianOS marketshare in smartphones by 2010 with 26.6% of the market.