Slow High Speed Access Gains in U.S. Market, Second Quarter 2012

The seventeen largest cable and telephone providers in the United States, representing about 93 percent of the market, acquired about 260,000 net high-speed Internet subscribers in the second quarter of 2012, according to Leichtman Research Group.

That is the fewest of any quarter in the eleven years LRG has been tracking the industry. The top cable companies added about 330,000 subscribers. 

The top telephone companies lost about 70,000 subscribers, LRG says. 

AT&T and Verizon added 669,000 fiber-based high speed subscribers, though, while having a net loss of 763,000 DSL subscribers. 

Broadband Internet Provider	Subscribers at End of 2Q 2012	Net Adds in 2Q 2012
Cable Companies
Comcast	18,738,000	156,000
Time Warner	11,208,000	72,000
Cox*	4,555,000	25,000
Charter	3,839,000	37,000
Cablevision	3,032,000	25,000
Suddenlink	979,400	(3,200)
Mediacom	894,000	7,000
Cable ONE	462,426	(1,017)
Other Major Private Cable Companies**	1,951,000	10,000
Total Top Cable	45,658,826	327,783
Telephone Companies
AT&T	16,434,000	(96,000)
Verizon	8,776,000	2,000
CenturyLink^	5,763,000	18,000
Frontier^^	1,751,000	5,000
Windstream	1,361,600	(2,200)
FairPoint	320,812	2,302
Cincinnati Bell	257,600	400
Total Top Telephone Companies	34,664,012	(70,498)
Total Broadband	80,332,838	257,285

Sources: The Companies and Leichtman Research Group, Inc. 

46% Of U.S. Bank Account Holders Will Use Mobile Banking By 2017

According to a new Forrester Research report, mobile banking will be used by 108 million U.S. usersby 2017. That’s about 46 percent of all U.S. bank account holders. That should not come as a surprise. What percentage of people now use automated teller machines?

Today, perhaps 13 percent of U.S. and 9 percent of European mobile phone owners regularly use their banks’ mobile banking tools.

Hits to Legacy Services Continue in 2nd Quarter 2012

DirecTV had never lost customers, on a net basis, ever, until the second quarter of 2012. Cable companies have losing video customers for about 16 consecutive quarters. 

And now it appears U.S. telcos might have lost digital subscriber line customers, on a net basis, for the first time. 

The eight largest American phone companies collectively lost 70,000 net DSL subscribers between April and June 2012. 

AT&T lost 96,000, while the other seven on average added a few thousand each. During that same period, the top four public cable ISPs, including industry giant Comcast, reported a gain of 290,000 subscribers. 

To be sure, you can attribute the second quarter loss virtually entirely to AT&T. But the fact remains that, where it comes to high speed broadband access, cable operators are adding customers, while telcos are struggling to keep pace. That doesn't mean telcos necessarily are "losing."

Keep in mind there is a huge nuance here. AT&T U-verse high speed Internet delivered a second-quarter net gain of 553,000 subscribers to reach a total of 6.5 million, helping offset losses from DSL.

In other words, legacy DSL is losing consumer favor. But U-verse and Verizon's FiOS are growing. So the cable lead in high speed access is not necessarily as stark as it might at first appear. 

In fact, you might argue that AT&T and Verizon are "trying" to lose DSL customers in favor of U-verse and FioS customers. 

Apple Grows Tablet Share to 70% in Second Quarter 2012

 Apple during the second quarter of 2012 shipped 17 million iPad 2 and new iPad tablets, up 44.1 percent from 11.8 million the first quarter of 2012, according to IHS  iSuppli.

As a result, Apple gainhed 11.5 points of market share during the quarter, boosting Apple’s second-quarter 2012 global tablet share to 69.6 percent, up from 58.1 percent in the first quarter.

Verizon Acquisition of Cable Spectrum Will be Approved

The U.S. Justice Department will drop its objections to the proposed Verizon purchase of spectrum from leading U.S. cable operators,  after the companies agreed in principle to limit the duration of the joint ventures to five years or less, after which they will have to reapply for antitrust clearance, people familiar with the discussions told the Wall Street Journal. 

Verizon and Comcast have also agreed not to implement the joint marketing agreement in areas where the two companies currently provide fixed network Internet, TV and phone services. As a practical matter, the firms would likely have done so in any case, to avoid drawing regulatory ire, it might be argued.

Under the new plan, Verizon Wireless stores won't sell Comcast's Xfinity service in regions where its parent company, Verizon Communications, already offers its FiOS service, for example.  That will alleviate concerns that the agency marketing deals effectively would end competition between cable and Verizon, in regions where they now compete head to head.

The new concessions mean that, as many had predicted, the agency deals will be aimed at AT&T and other competitors. Essentially, the new way the agency agreements are implemented will mean that cable operators can sell Verizon wireless products to bolster their triple play offerings, except where one of the cable companies competes with a Verizon fixed network. 

In some cases, cable companies will be able to sell Verizon Wireless products, while in other areas they cannot. The revised framework, in other words, does not represent, either for Verizon or the cable operators, a clear "in region only"or "out of region only" framework. 

"Post-PC" Notion is Driven by Changing Content Consumption Preferences

It will come as no surprise that people in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia are shifting many PC activities to their tablets and smart phones, according to a new survey by Gartner.

The results also confirm that PCs have become media consumption devices. In fact, you might well argue that the spectacular adoption of a range of media consumption devices, from iPods to iPads and tablets to smart phones, has much to do with those key end user activities.

In terms of the notion that we are entering a “post-PC era,” the key idea is probably less that tablets are displacing PCs as it is the notion that people use computing appliances largely for entertainment, social networking, email, messaging and content consumption.

The survey found that the main activities moving from PCs to media tablets are checking email (81 percent of respondents), reading the news (69 percent), checking the weather forecast (63 percent), social networking (62 percent) and gaming (60 percent).

“The rapid adoption of media tablets is substantively changing how consumers access, create and share content,” said Carolina Milanesi, Gartner research VP. . ”The survey found that more than 50 percent of media tablet owners prefer to read news, magazines and books on screen, rather than on paper.”

“On average, one in three respondents used their media tablets to read a book, compared with 13 percent for mobile PCs, and 7 percent for mobile phones,” Milanesi said.

Media tablets play a more dominant role in the home than mobile phones or PCs, with the highest usage taking place in the living room (87 percent), the bedroom (65 percent) and the kitchen (47 percent). “Weekday evenings are the most popular time to use media tablets, and this usage flattens out during the weekend as people tend to be away from home,” said Ms. Milanesi.

The survey confirmed that the main reason for buying a media tablet is the form factor. More specifically, respondents purchase a media tablet, in preference to a PC, for its convenience, small size and light weight. The survey also found that 45 percent of respondents do not share their tablet at all. This confirms that a media tablet is almost as personal as a mobile phone in terms of usage and consumer attitude.

“The mobile phone is the most personal device in the hands of users, and it enables more private activities,” said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. “It is the device that the respondents use most throughout the day, with the average user in the survey using it eight times a day for tasks requiring connectivity. This compares with an average usage frequency of twice a day for media tablets and three times a day for mobile PCs.”

Mobile phones play a role both inside and outside the home. Within the home, users recorded the most activities on their phones when in their living room (78 percent). Sixty-five percent used them outside the home or while in transit, and 66 per cent used them at work.

Across all activities conducted on the Internet, checking email (74 percent) and social networking (57 percent) are the most common activities on mobile phones. Gaming is in fourth place (42 percent), and appears more popular than checking the news (40 percent) and listening to music (40 percent). Watching live TV remains a very limited activity for mobile phone users (5 percent), but on-demand content has a slightly broader reach (15 percent).

The survey also found that both male and female adopters show similar attitudes toward the use of mobile devices. Both groups use the Internet more at home than elsewhere, and they use it for research, shopping, learning and socialising. However, the women in the study connect significantly less than the men when outside the home, and the difference in location might be partly linked to gender-specific usage patterns. While men seem to prefer to gather information, women use their devices more for personalised entertainment activities like gaming and socializing via Facebook or Twitter.

When do iPhone Owners Use Brand, Price Comparison Apps?

When do most Apple iPhone owners use  branded retail apps? On weekdays, a study by IDC using Onavo data has found. When do Apple iPhone owners use price comparison apps? On weekends. But when do they spend money? Perhaps Sundays, the study suggests.

The single biggest day of comparison app usage is Saturday, and the single biggest day of retail app usage is Sunday. This potentially implies that more mobile price checking and “showcasing” are done on Saturdays and more actual mobile purchases are being done on Sundays.

The second highest day of retail app usage is Monday. With Sunday as the number one day for retail app usage, it would have been expected that Saturday or Friday would be the number two day, IDC argues. This implies that Sunday retail app usage has a positive carry-over effect on Mondays.

The IDC study used anonymized U.S. iPhone usage data for the months of June and July 2012, and looked at use of BarCode Reader, PriceCheck by Amazon, RedLaser by eBay, and ShopSavvy.

Retail brand apps analyzed included Best Buy, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart.

"One of the most surprising findings was that different mobile commerce app types have distinctly different usage patterns based upon days of the week," noted Scott Ellison, vice president, Mobile & Consumer Connected Platforms at IDC. "Users spend more time with retail brand apps during the workweek than pricing comparison apps, but that pattern reverses itself on the weekends when price comparison app usage soars past retail app usage."