Total Voice over IP (VoIP) subscribers worldwide increased by 34 mln subscribers in 2006, In-Stat says. The European consumer VoIP market increased by over 14 mln subscribers in 2006. US wireline operators added only 4 mln VoIP subscribers in 2006. In 2011, the US will represent only 18% of the global consumer VoIP market. By 2011, In-Stat predicts the consumer VoIP market will total nearly $44 bln worldwide.

At least 2,544,000 people around the world will search the internet for dental treatment abroad this year, according to Reva Health Network. In June alone, 636,155 dental tourism-related searches were carried out globally by 212,051 unique users on Google, Yahoo! and MSN search engines. The average value of overseas dental treatments enquired about specifically through Reva (excluding travel) is $4,485, which compares to an average of $12,150 for the equivalent dental treatment in the US. This represents a saving of $7,665, or 63%.

65% of online health consumers report clicking on a result because of its relevance to a particular health query while only 16% report selecting a result based on the trustworthiness of its source or author. Only 19% of online health users have a few favorite websites they report accessing when looking for information. The majority of online health users report initiating research without a specific destination in mind and opt to utilize search engines instead, JupiterResearch says.

IDC published PC vendor ranking for US PC market in Q2 2007.

17% of senior marketers say their organizations have bought advertising in return for a news story, according to PRWeek/Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L) Marketing Management Survey. 7% of marketers said their organizations have had an implicit/non-verbal agreement with a reporter or editor that they expected to see favorable coverage of their company or products in exchange for advertising. And 5% of marketers said their companies had paid or provided a gift of value to an editor or producer in exchange for a news story about their company or its products.

Worldwide PC shipments grew by 12.5% in Q2 2007, according to IDC. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) returned as the fastest growing region with volume increasing more than 20% from the same quarter one year ago. A competitive market in the United States also helped boost overall growth with other regions expanding in line with or slightly behind forecasts. Channel expansion and competition for the consumer and small business segments added to the trend toward Portable systems as key market drivers.

The US Census Bureau estimates that the average American spends more than 100 hours commuting to work each year. But carpooling is far from mainstream despite efforts by some employers to offer van pick-up service for employees and other commuting perks. Just 12% of the 128.3 mln workers in the US carpooled in 2000, down from 13.4% in 1990. In 2000, 76% drove to work alone, according to census information.

In the US market, PC shipments totaled 15.7 mln units in Q2 2007, a 5.9% increase from Q2 2006. Gartner had previously projected growth of 3.2%.

DRAMeXchange reports that 25% of flash memory chips produced in Q3 2007 will go into Apple products.

1394-enabled device shipments will grow by only 0.2% annually through 2011. 1394 had created an ecosystem, with digital camcorders at the center, but there has been slippage in this ecosystem recently, In-Stat says. From 2005 to 2006, 1394 penetration of digital camcorders fell from 85% to 77%.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 61.1 mln units in Q2 2007, an 11.7% increase from Q2 2006, according to Gartner.

4% of American youths online have been asked to send a sexually explicit photo of themselves over the Internet, University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center reports.

The overall click fraud rate was 15.8% for Q2 2007, up from 14.1% in Q2 2006 and 14.8% from Q1 2007, Click Forensics said. The rate for pay-per-click ads appearing on search engine content networks, such as Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 25.6%, up from 21.9% in Q1 2007.

In the advanced Japanese mobile phone market, the shipment of 3G phones exceeded 92% of 47.8 mln phones sold in 2006. In 2006, 43.5 mln 3G phones were sold in Japan. Camera, music player function, and above 2.4-inch screens with at least 240*320 resolution have become standard. 98 new 3G models were launched in the last 12 months in Japan, In-Stat says.

Driven by rising demand for video, the market for premium mobile content is expected to exceed $44 bln in 2011, more than double the nearly $20 bln in 2007, iSuppli predicts. iSuppli projects the combined streaming and broadcast mobile video markets will exceed $6 bln in 2008, up from $1 bln in 2007.

The global DRAM module market will reach $31 bln in 2007, up 2.4% from $30.3 bln in 2006. The module market will also experience a growth of 2.4% in 2007, according to iSuppli. OEM module sales will grow by 1.1%, while third-party module sales will rise by 3.8%.

European mobile broadband market will reach 5 mln connections at the end of in 2007. Austria and Sweden are leading the way with hundreds of thousands of consumers signed up to affordable high-speed Turbo 3G network services delivering data rates up to 7 Mbps, Berg Insight says. The total value of the European mobile broadband market will grow at an annual compound growth rate of 22.9% over the coming five years to reach 3 bln euros. In 2011 the number of connections is estimated to have reached nearly 30 mln.

Worldwide PC unit shipments will grow 11.1% in 2007 and 11% in 2008. Stronger mobile PC shipments and accelerating PC penetration in emerging markets will drive faster PC market growth, Gartner says.

The Southeast Asian contract-manufacturing market, consisting of Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) and Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) providers, will rise to $24.9 bln by 2011, a nearly $9 bln increase from $16.2 bln in 2006, according to iSuppli. By 2011, Southeast Asia will rise to account for 7% of global electronics contract-manufacturing revenue, up from 6.3% in 2006.

Samsung, TSMC, Intel, Toshiba, and UMC had the five largest shares of the world’s chip manufacturing capacity at the end of 2006, with a combined capacity of just over 2.9 mln 200-mm equivalent wafer per month. They accounted for 32% of total wafer capacity as of year-end 2006, according to IC Insights.

According to a survey of 225 US-based organizations, 66% of survey respondents projected some level of increase in IT staff for the next 12-month period, up from 61% in 2006. The Gartner survey also showed a 1% increase in employee-initiated turnover rate across the board compared with in 2006’s survey results.

US game console market will generate cumulative revenues of $66 bln through 2012. JupiterResearch anticipates the competitive field will be much closer than in the past; at the end of the current cycle in 2012, the range in market shares is projected to just under 10% as compared to the 33% range in market shares at the end of the last cycle in 2005. Console market revenue growth will reach a high of $12.8 bln in 2007 when new platform sales are strongest. And, in 2008 JupiterResearch expects US household penetration to surpass the 50% mark.

TD-SCDMA subscribers will experience fast growth after 2008, and will approach 52 mln in China by 2011, assuming that China Mobile obtains a TD-SCDMA license, In-Stat predicts.

Game advertising spending in the US will grow from $370 mln in 2006 to more than $2 bln in 2012, according to Parks Associates. Over that time, game advertising will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33%, much higher than that of other major advertising media, including TV, radio, print, and the Internet. In-game advertising will experience the highest growth rate among the various categories of game advertising methods forecasted, increasing from $55 mln in 2006 to more than $800 mln in 2012. Specifically, dynamic in-game advertising (DIGA) in PC, console, mobile, and casual games will grow from 27% of the in-game advertising market in 2006 to 84% in 2012.

Consumers’ appetite for car navigation and Global Position Systems (GPSs) has become voracious, causing worldwide shipments of automotive navigation systems to more than triple from 2006 to 2012, iSuppli predicts. The raised awareness of navigation is now having an uplifting effect on all types of systems, including line-fit units, with iSuppli forecasting total market shipments of 65.1 mln navigation systems by 2012, more than three times the 19.8 mln shipped in 2006.