A new survey out Wednesday gives an intriguing snapshot of current mobile shopping. Naturally, the top Internet retailer, Amazon, takes the first spot in shopping satisfaction but Apple is close on its heels and ties with TV retail powerhouse QVC. In a survey by analytics player ForeSee taken during the all-important holiday shopping period, Apple scored 83 percent as consumers expressed increasing satisfaction with mobile shopping...
There is now confirmation of what we already suspected: Apple is killing it when it comes to mobile video. The iPhone, iPad and iPod touch collectively account for 60 percent of mobile video, with Apple's smartphone and tablet comprising more than half of all mobile clips viewed during 2012, according to a study released Wednesday. By comparison, 32 percent of Android devices are used for viewing mobile video.
That's another acknowledgment of both Apple's tablet dominance and the fact that owners of Apple mobile gear use their devices more often than their fellow Android-totting counterparts. In 2012 alone, mobile video viewing grew sixfold versus the previous year as mobile devices increasingly replace computers as the preferred platform for media consumption...
The battle between Apple and Samsung for smartphone supremacy rages on. While the two rivals accounted for more than half of smartphones sold during 2012, demand for the South Korean firm's phones rose nearly 86 percent while iPhone sales rose by around 22 percent last year. According to Gartner, the two companies took No. 1 and No. 3 spots in overall while ranking first and second in the growing market for smartphones, respectively.
This as the cell phone industry saw its first dip in sales since 2009. Other vendors, of course, were left fighting each other for scraps...
More indications that Apple may be slipping in the eyes of some consumers. Internet retail giant Amazon.com now has the best reputation among U.S. corporations, Harris Interactive announced Tuesday. Despite Apple winning the poll in 2012, Kindle-maker Amazon grabbed the top spot this year - ironically cited for its emotional impact on consumers despite operating a completely virtual business.
The online retailer also topped Apple, Google, Disney and others in the products and services category. This result only highlights Amazon's increased brand image in tablets, music, movies and cloud computing, areas bringing it into conflict with Apple and other tech players...
Results of a new smartphone user satisfaction survey have some observers scratching their heads. Apple's iPhone 5 ranked fifth in the U.S., behind a number of Android devices from Motorola, HTC and Samsung. Due to Apple's past high ratings in customer satisfaction, the survey's findings prompted questions so far left unanswered.
According to a poll by OnDevice Research, Motorola's Atrix HD took first place in the U.S. user satisfaction scores, with the Motorola Droid Razr M, HTC's Rezound 4G, Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 and the iPhone 5 filling out the top five devices.
While Apple was named the top brand in overall mobile device satisfaction by U.S. consumers, Google ranked number two - even though it does not directly produce mobile devices...
Apple's iPad mini is doing the job exactly as the company planned: slowing a slipping market share. The 7.9-inch device is working so well one analyst credited it for preventing Apple's fourth-quarter share of the tablet market falling below 49 percent.
Another, even more striking tidbit: the iPad accounted for one-in-six PCs shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, per research firm Canalys. And if you counted tablets instead of PCs, demand during the fourth quarter would be up twelve percent to 134 million units. Instead, PC shipments fell by five percent in 2012, emphasizing how tablets such as the iPad could recharge a flagging industry...
We have often written how the handset market is essentially a duopoly of operating systems - iOS and Android - as well as brands: Apple and Samsung. Yesterday came even another way the two are dominating the mobile world - profits. Apple and Samsung accounted for 103 percent of handset profits in 2013, a figure made possible by the zero or negative growth by six of the eight leading handset makers. Apple held 69 percent of handset profits earned in all of 2012, more than double that of the South Korean Samsung, which hauled in 34 percent of phone profits last year, according to Canaccord Genuity...
Apple's iPad appears to have recovered from its post-Christmas slump. The tablet now enjoys an 81 percent share after falling from a high of 89 percent to 79 percent between December 25-27, 2012. Online advertising network Chitika Tuesday released the chart for the U.S. and Canada which proves the iPad recovered some of the ground lost to cheaper tablets.
The latest data obtained from millions of devices participating in Chitika's ad network shows Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet having the second-highest January 2013 market share. Although a distant runner-up to the iPad, the Amazon tablet scored a 7.7 percent tablet share, while Samsung's family of Galaxy tablets reached 3.9 percent...
A convergence of mobile trends is setting the stage for a day when more than half of the applications will support both HTML5 and native iOS/Android environments. That's the word from research giant Gartner, who predicts companies must support multiple platforms as well as native features, such as mapping, cameras and location-based services. Additionally, the researcher forecasts brand-name smartphone makers could be pushed out of the low-cost market as countries such as China and India produce home-grown alternatives priced as low as $50...
Price drops are the norm in app business. Developers are keen to slash prices of their digital warez, mostly for a limited time, in order to boost revenue. Some apps even go from paid to free permanently in the hope of raking in more revenue through in-app purchases. Just a few recent examples: Evernote has temporarily made the Penultimate handwriting app free and National Geographic's World Atlas for the first time has gone free.
Netbot, the Tweetbot for App.net, is also a free download now. A new survey was published Friday, highlighting the positive effect of price changes on download volumes and revenue of iPad and iPhone apps in the App Store...
Research firm NPD today issued a report highlighting Apple's lead concerning electronic sell through (EST) of digital movies. Now, EST comprised just sixteen percent of the larger video on demand (VOD) revenue throughout the 2012 calendar year.
At the same time, iTunes dominated the EST market with a 45 percent share. Amazon was #2 with eighteen percent, followed by the $3 Walmart-owned Vudu (fifteen percent), #4 Xbox Video (fourteen percent) and Others taking up the remaining eight percent of the market.
Movies on Blu-ray and DVD discs? These accounted for a still respectable 61 percent of home video spending on movies, excluding Netflix and other movie-streaming subscriptions. However, that figure is notably down from 64 percent in 2011, despite average prices of Blu-ray movies falling seven percent to $19.97 per unit. Steve Jobs was right, Blu-ray indeed is "a bag of hurt"...
Examples keep appearing of how Apple is able to squeeze more revenue from its iPhone and iPad than rival Android. The latest data shows Apple's App Store earned 3.5 times more than Android's Google Play in December. Did I mention this happened despite Google Play doubling its quarterly revenue? The reason, according to App Annie, is the iPhone 5 and iPad mini - both popular holiday gifts and natural driver of App Store sales...