IT Facts

According to Nielsen SoundScan, Universal Music led the US music market with 35.12% in October 2008, followed by Sony Music with 22.79%, Warner Music with 21.12%, EMI Group with 8.35%, and the rest of the labels with 12.61%.

Both the USA and China had about 78 mln broadband lines at the end of August, but China grew twice as fast. In the USA, new broadband lines added fell from 3.4 mln in the last quarter of 2007 to barely 1.1 mln in Q2 2008. In China they rose from 3.5 mln to 5.0 mln in the same period. By the end of June 2008 Point Topic’s data shows the USA had nearly 76.9 mln broadband lines but China was less than 900,000 behind on 76.0 mln. The gap was less than the number China added in July alone, 1.14 mln according to Chinese official figures.

2009 global handset growth will reach 3%, due to market weaknesses in Europe and North America,m UBS claims.

US Internet advertising revenues in January-June 2008 were $11.5 bln, setting yet another new half-year record that represents a 15.2% increase over the first half of 2007. Q2 2008 was up 12.8% over Q2 2007 and showed a slight decline of 0.3% from Q1 2008. Search revenues totaled almost $5.1 bln for the first six months of 2008, up 24% from the $4.1 bln for the same period in 2007. Display-related advertising totaled close to $3.8 bln for first six months of 2008, compared to the $3.2 bln reported for the same period in 2007, showing about a 19% increase. Display-related advertising includes Display Banner ads, Rich Media, Digital Video, and Sponsorship, IAB says.

30% of US consumers who purchased Apple iPhone 3G in the summer of 2008 switched from other mobile carriers to join AT&T, the exclusive mobile carrier for the iPhone in the US. 23% of consumers, on average, switched carriers between June and August 2008. 47% of new AT&T iPhone customers that switched carriers switched from Verizon Wireless, another 24% switched from T-Mobile, and 19% switched from Sprint. Before the launch of the iPhone 3G, iPhone sales represented 11% of the consumer market for smartphones (January through May 2008); however, after the launch of iPhone 3G, Apple commanded 17% of the smartphone market (January through August 2008).

According to ABI Research, 46% of those who use social networks have also visited a social network through a mobile phone. Of these, nearly 70% have visited MySpace and another 67% had visited Facebook. No other social networking site reached 15% adoption mobile adoption.

Worldwide sales of semiconductors grew by 5.5% to $22.7 bln in August 2008 from August 2007 sales of $21.5 bln. Sales grew by 2.4% from July when sales were $22.2 bln, SIA says. Year-to-date sales through August were $170.2 bln, an increase of 4.5% from the same period of 2007 when sales were $162.9 bln. Excluding memory products, industry sales were up by 11.4% YTY in August 2008. Year-to-date sales were 4.5% ahead of 2007 and remain in line with the SIA mid-year forecast of 4.3% growth in 2008. PC unit sales are projected to grow by more than 13% in 2008. Unit sales grew by 9.1% YTY in August 2008, a modest slowdown from July 2008. Worldwide unit sales of cellular handsets remained strong – especially in emerging markets. Unit sales of cellular handsets are forecast to grow about ten% in 2008, with the strongest growth coming from emerging markets.

According to Lux Research, solar market will reach $100 bln by 2013.

51% of US small business owners said conditions for their businesses were getting worse, up from 44% in August, the credit card firm said. Another 73% said the U.S. economy was getting worse, up from 60%. Only 7% said they felt the economy was improving, an all-time low for the monthly surveys.

Broadband adoption in the United States continues to exhibit steady growth, with 17% more American adults having broadband at home in April 2008 than was the case roughly a year earlier. Fully 55% of Americans reported having a high-speed internet connection at home in April 2008 survey, up from 47% in March 2007. The share of Americans with broadband at home in our April 2008 survey is little changed from the 54% of Americans who said they had broadband at home in our December 2007 survey, according Pew Internet Project.

28% of rural adult Americans without home high-speed say broadband isn’t available where they live, in contrast to 22% of non-rural Americans without broadband who say this. Moreover, 24% of dial-up users in rural areas say having the service available where they live would prompt a switch to broadband; this compares to the 14% figure for all respondents, according to the Pew Internet Project.