Subscription Video Market Shrinks 1.5% in 2011

U.S. cable operators lost about 2.9 million video subscribers in 2011, shrinking the overall subscription TV market by 1.5 percent even as telcos added 1.1 million and satellite TV providers were roughly flat at 280,000 net adds, according to Nielsen data.


The big take away is that cable TV subs fell five percent. That steady drip, drip, drip of deserting customers now is the cable analogy to telco wired voice. 


Meanwhile, households with broadband and only free, over-the-air broadcast TV increased by 631,000 over the course of last year, climbing 14 percent to 5.1 million. 

Why Google Has to Go "Mobile First"

Three numbers explain why Google has taken the "mobile first" approach to application development, why it has chosen to lose some money on Android and create mobile devices.


A recent survey by Strata Marketing of  1,000 advertising agencies that together process $50 billion in media buys annually found 69 percent focused their digital spend on social media. 


That's more than those who focused on search (65.5 percent) and just short of online display (71.3 percent), Strata says. 


Keep in mind that Google built its business on search advertising. So leading ad agencies now are placing inventory on display and social more than search. 


Within social media, the majority of advertising agencies (85.1 percent) said they and their clients focused most on Facebook, 44.8 percent on YouTube, 39.1 percent on LinkedIn, 24.1 percent on Google , 9.2 percent on Foursquare and 1.1 percent  on  MySpace. 

The YouTube figures are helpful, but the fact remains that Google has to do better in display and social advertising, as well as mobile, to remain a force in advertising. And it is mobile where the opportunity is greatest, and the market as yet unconsolidated. 

Tablet Market Grew Less than Expected in First Quarter, 2012

The global tablet market did not grow as fast as analysts at International Data Corporation had expected in the first quarter of 2012. A steep drop in shipments of Android-based tablets offset a strong quarter from Apple, according to International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker.

Total worldwide media tablet shipments for the quarter reached 17.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012, about 1.2 million units below IDC's projection for the quarter.

While IDC predicted a sharp seasonal slowdown of -34 percent from the previous quarter’s record-breaking 28.2 million units, the actual decline was slightly steeper at -38.4 percent.

The total still represents a robust year-over-year growth rate of 120 percent, up from 7.9 million units in the first quarter of 2011.

Apple shipped 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, down from 15.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, and grew its worldwide share from 54.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 68 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

Amazon, which had 16.8 percent of the market on shipment of 4.8 million units, saw its share decline significantly in the first quarter to just over four percent, falling to third place as a result.

Samsung took the number-two position while Lenovo vaulted into the number four spot, followed by Barnes & Noble at number five.

Although total Android shipments were down sharply in the first quarter of 2012, companies such as Samsung and Lenovo are beginning to gain traction in the market with their latest generation of Android products. IDC expects the segment to rebound quickly as other vendors introduce new products in the second quarter and beyond.

"The worldwide tablet market is entering a new phase in the second half of 2012 that will undoubtedly reshape the competitive landscape," said Bob O'Donnell, program vice president, Clients and Displays. "While Apple will continue to sit comfortably on the top for now, the battle for the next several positions is going to be fierce. Throw in Ultrabooks, the launch of Windows 8, and a few surprise product launches, and you have all the makings of an incredible 2012 holiday shopping season."

Will "Mobile First" Will Wipe Out The Big Software Makers?

"A lot of legacy players — folks that build enterprise apps on prior platforms — will end up being disrupted by new players who are better equipped to take advantage of the new mobile platform, says Kevin Spain, Emergence Partners general partner. That could even happen to Salesforce and SuccessFactors that grew up in the Web world, he believes.

The startups with the greatest potential to generate outsized returns are those creating “mobile-first enterprise applications” – those that leverage the unique capabilities of mobile devices to enable the creation of new categories of enterprise applications. 


These applications are very different from mobile-enabled versions of traditional enterprise software such as Salesforce.com and Workday,Spain argues.

True “mobile-first enterprise applications” are built for mobile platforms initially or exclusively and enable a worker or business to do things that simply were not possible before the proliferation of advanced connected devices.


The point is that mobile and cloud delivery and consumption of applications might have disruptive impact on industry suppliers. 

Samsung Galaxy S III the Challenger to Apple iPhone?

Virtually every smart phone supplier aspires to compete head to head with the Apple iPhone. You can make your own assessment about how well all those efforts have fared. 


But at least some observers believe Samsung might be in position to do so. That is based in part on the profitability of Samsung's smart phone business, as well as sales volume. 


Samsung has displaced longtime mobile device market share leader Nokia as the world's top mobile phone vendor. 


According to International Data Corporation, vendors shipped 398.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012 compared to 404.3 million units in the first quarter of 2011. 


Samsung's ascension to the market's top spot is largely a reflection of its gains in the smart phone market over the past two years, said Kevin Restivo, IDC senior research analyst. 


Apple and Samsung also accounted for a stunning 95 percent of the handset industry's profits during the fourth quarter, according to a study by Canaccord Genuity.


The issue now is whether the Galaxy S III can legitimately compete head to head with the iPhone. 

Is Mobile VoIP More Reliable than Mobile Service Provider Voice?

Most observers would agree that dropped calls are a driver of customer churn. The perhaps-unknown question is whether mobile VoIP offered by over-the-top providers is more reliable than carrier-provided voice. 


Ask yourself whether you ever have seen a study comparing mobile VoIP dropped call rates to mobile carrier voice dropped call rates. It's difficult to impossible. 


Some 39 percent of  mobile users surveyed on behalf of Rebtel experienced more than five dropped calls per month. Perhaps the implication is that over-the-top mobile VoIP can be as reliable, if not more reliable, than carrier-supplied voice. But it is hard to test the assertion. 


Do you believe that mobile over-the-top VoIP will lead to fewer dropped calls than a mobile service provider's own voice service? 


The general rule of thumb is that over-the-top VoIP, in general, is less reliable than landline voice, but good enough to match mobile call quality and reliability. One might argue that service provider or enterprise IP telephony are as reliable as landline voice, though even that claim is hard to test. 


The study also showed that having a clear call connection is very important to 89 percent of respondents, with 84 percent of those claiming they are at least somewhat likely to switch smart phones as a result of poor quality. 


About 78 percent said they would be likely to switch carriers due to poor network performance, according to Rebtel.  


Dropped calls raise the likelihood of customer churn. What is difficult to determine is whether mobile VoIP, over the top, actually provides reliability that is better than what most consumers experience with mobile voice. Try to find any studies on that particular subject. It is virtually impossible. 

20% of Americans, 34% of Smart Phone Owners Purchased Using a Mobile Phone in 2011

A new survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Placecast claims that 20 percent of adult mobile phone owners in the U.S. made an online purchase with their phone last year. 


Those with smartphones were more likely to make purchases on their phones. 


Thirty-four percent of smart phone owners made a purchase on their phone last year, compared to 11 percent of those with feature phones. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents to the study  said that making a purchase on their mobile phone was at least somewhat important to them.

Overall interest in using phones for purchases has grown by eight percentage points in the past two years, with 38 percent of all mobile phone owners saying it is at least somewhat important. 

Some 59 percent of smart phone owners surveyed say it is at least somewhat important to be able to make a purchase on their device.