Apple iPhone, BlackBerry are Most-Profitable Mobile Devices

Just two mobile devices account for the overwhelming share of global handset profits, says Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff. Between them, the two devices account for 35 percent of global mobile operating profits despite representing just three percent of global market share.

In 2009, the two devices will move up to five percent market share but claim 58 percent of

total operating profits.

Smart phones hold only about 13 percent of total cellphone sales globally, but are growing, despite a drop in the broader cellphone market in the first quarter.

The iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T, draws the fattest subsidy at about $400 a phone, Modoff said. BlackBerries draw subsidies averaging $200 from U.S. operators. Basic cell phones get a $100 subsidy. Manufacturers of basic phones make next to nothing, unless they have enormous scale.

Nokia, the industry leader, manufactured 46 percent of the units sold last year but earned 55 percent of the profits, Modoff estimates.

5% of U.S. Universities, Colleges Have Deployed Unified Communications Campus-Wide

About five percent of U.S. university and college campuses already have deployed unified communications campus-wide, according to a recent survey by the Association for information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education. Another four percent of respondents say they have extensive deployments, but to a limited number of people.

About 44 percent report having limited deployments or trials underway. About 26 percent are in planning stages. About 20 percent have no UC projects or planning underway.

The survey featured responses from 103 institutions.

24% of U.S. Mobile Users Possibly Are No Longer Voice Centric

About 13 percent of U.S. mobile phone owners say they "never" make calls on their devices. Altogether, about 24 percent make calls once a week or less, according to Lightspeed Research. That's a shocking statistic for devices known as "mobile phones."

One might draw several conclusions from the results. It is possible that, for many users, the mobile is helpful, but not something that adds value on a daily basis. The other likely conclusion to be drawn is that text communications are, for many users, a preferred or reasonable substitute for voice, as email has displaced a huge amount of voice communications.

If so, the findings indicate the clear emergence of usage patterns centered around texting or mobile Internet activities rather than voice, and the importance for mobile service providers of migrating revenue models to primary reliance on data-related services and applications.

In many cases, it would seem to make sense to lead with data plans and features, and then add on voice only afterwards. It also would seem to make sense to plans and devices specifically optimized for text and Web applications.

That would be a reversal of historic practice, where voice plans lead and text plans or data plans are an add on.

But the practice would not be without precedent. Most BlackBerry users likely are more interested in mobile email than mobile voice. They want the voice feature, as many users buy primarily for voice, but want the texting feature. Most iPhone users likely value mobile Web access as much as voice or text messaging.

The point is that mobility has become a multi-product business, with lots of different ways to create devices and service plans that appeal to different user populations.

Will Skype and Google Voice Dominate Mobile VoIP?

Skype, the global leader in PC-based VoIP, has been preparing for mobile-based VoIP as well, but Google Voice might wind up being the market leader in mobile VoIP, says Jeffrey Lindsay, Sanford A. Bernstein analyst.

"It's probably the biggest current threat to Skype," says Lindsay. Ultimately, Google might grab as much as 60 percent market share in the mobile VoIP space, he predicts.

40% U.S. Mobile Broadband Adoption

To the extent that U.S. consumers are not using mobile broadband, availability is not the problem.

Well over 90 percent of locations now are 3G enabled.

ComScore says the United States caught up with Western Europe in the adoption of 3G in June 2008, with 28.4 percent of American mobile subscribers having 3G devices versus 28.3 percent in the largest countries in Europe.

U.S. 3G penetration went past 40 percent in the first quarter of 2009, says wireless data analyst Chetan Sharma.

Enterprise C Suites Now are "Digital"

A generational shift is occurring in U.S. enterprise "C" title ranks, but one trend already is clear: the Internet has become the top information resource. Some 81 percent of respondents 50 or younger are on the Internet daily while 62 percent of executives older than that did so.

Also, most C-title executives at firms making more than $1 billion in annual revenue have shifted their information-gthering strategies away from traditional media and to Internet-based media.

When consuming "traditional media" at work, 70 percent of respondents say they get that information online. When consuming "traditional broadcast media" at work, 69 percent use the Internet.

C-suite executives do their own searches. That is a sharp break from the way most such executives probably worked decades ago, when "middle managers" gathered information and passed it up to the C suites. These days, the C suite knows it can get information directly, and does so.

Also, video and social communities are growing in importance, the survey reveals. About 33 percent of 50-and-under executives view work-related videos "daily," while 31 percent use a Web-enabled mobile device to search for information related to business.

The mean age of all executives taking this survey was 46.7 years. But there remains one glaring exception to the trend: only one percent of those over the age of 50 provide daily contributions to a work-related blog. Another four percent in this age group say they contribute several times a week, the Forbes Insights study found.

In contrast, 35 percent of executives ages 40 to 49 say they maintain a work-related blog daily. That figure increases to 56 percent of the executives under the age of 40.

That probably matches what you would have guessed: younger and "middle-aged" people have gotten comfortable with the new technologies while older people tend to resist. That same pattern was found for computer use, Internet use or email in the ealier days as well.

Overall, about three percent of surveyed executives over 50 participate in Twitter or another microblog. In contrast, 34 percent of the executives ages 40 to 49 participate. Among users under the age of 40, 56 percent of the executives under 40 participate.

The top three research topics that C-level executives seek are competitor analysis (53 percent), customer trends (41 percent), and corporate developments (39 percent).

Of those executives in sales and marketing, 76 percent say they seek customer trends. Of those executives in finance, 63 percent said they seek competitor analysis. Of those executives in IT, 59 percent seek technology trends.

The study, "The Rise of the Digital C-Suite," is based on a survey of 354 executives at U.S. companies with annual sales in excess of $1 billion. It also included one-on-interviews. Nearly half held C-level titles, such as CEO, CMO, and CIO; the others held senior-level titles, such as EVP, VP, and director. A total of 12 percent identified themselves as working in sales and marketing.

http://www.forbes.com/forbesinsights/digital_csuite/index.html

U.S. Will Leap Over Europe in Mobile Advertising Within 2 Years

Alex Moukas, CEO of Velti, the top European mobile ad company, said he fully expects the U.S. to leap ahead of Europe in mobile advertising within two years. That would be a switch, as U.S. practitioners have lagged their European counterparts up to this point.

So far this year, mobile advertising is the second most-popular marketing channel, following the Web.

Campaigns sending traffic to site increased 10.46 percent in June, says Millenial Media. The study also found that the average number of monthly page views per user was 99 page views.