Sign of a maturing marketing flattening out, a lack of compelling devices, or a contraction in the economy? Gartner today released figures that note that worldwide sales of mobile phones were actually down by two percent this quarter, to reach a total of 419.1 million units — the first time the market has declined since the second quarter of 2009, the analysts say.
Gartner’s explanation is a slowdown in demand from Asia-Pacific, because of a lack of compelling new devices getting launched in the period: users are simply holding out until something better comes along. Nevertheless, of the vendors that are doing well, Samsung is riding at the top of the list, with 20.7 percent of all mobile sales globally, and among smartphones, it is the only Android vendor to have more than 10 percent market share — with Android now accounting for 56 percent of all smartphone sales in the quarter.
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At yesterday’s Apple event, CEO Tim Cook ran through some big numbers that underscored just how strongly the iPad is pacing against PCs when it comes to consumer interest. Today, Gartner released some forecasts that underscore how that story is not set to change any time soon.
The analysts say that PC shipments are on track to grow by just 4.4 percent in 2012 — to 368 million units, as consumers continue to prioritize purchases of new tablets, and smartphones, ahead of buying new laptop or desktop computers. But at least this is a slight improvement on 2011, when Gartner said that shipments were essentially flat on 2010. → Read More
Apple has an undeniably huge opportunity in China, but it is still facing some big challenges. As the iPhone maker claimed the top spot as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor in the last quarter (October-December), it actually slipped in the rankings in China and is now in fifth position after ZTE.
But with Apple only kicking off sales of the iPhone 4S in China this January, it’s arguable whether we will see a delayed reaction from the launch of the new device, or whether longer term this is simply a market that will ultimately gravitate to local brands and cheaper devices in the longer term. → Read More
We’ve seen handset makers like HTC, LG and Nokia all warning of declines in smartphone sales. But if there is a slowdown affecting some, it’s not because people are not buying smartphones; it’s because they’re all buying iPhones.
Figures out from Gartner today say that smartphone sales totalled 149 million units in Q4 2011 — 47.3 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago, led by none other than Apple’s iPhone, which its analysts noted “saved” the smartphone market after two quarters of declining sales. → Read More
Worldwide IT spending growth is expected to grow 3.7 percent in 2012, a slowdown from the 6.9 percent growth in 2011, according to a new forecast from Gartner. The research firm lowered its 2012 forecast from its previous estimate of 4.6 percent due to global economic woes and theThailand floods which hit the hard disc drive industry.
The good news is that global IT spending is still enormous—an estimated 3.8 trillion dollars worldwide. → Read More
Gartner just released its worldwide enterprise IT spending estimates, which are projected to total $2.7 trillion in 2012. That’s a 3.9 percent increase from 2011 expected spending of $2.6 trillion, but down from a 5.9 percent expected increase in 2011.
Gartner says this year alone, 350 companies will each invest more than $1 billion in IT. And at the forefront of IT spending are applications in the cloud, social, data warehousing and mobility areas. Gartner says that $74 billion was spent on public cloud services in 2010, which only represented 3 percent of enterprise spending. But, the firm says that public cloud services will grow five times faster than overall IT enterprise spending (19 percent annually through 2015). → Read More
There’s more good news for the growth of the social enterprise. Gartner is reporting today that the social customer relationship management (CRM) market is forecast to reach over $1 billion in revenue by year-end 2012, up from approximately $625 million in 2010. Worldwide social CRM is projected to total $820 million in 2011.
Gartner says that spending by buyers on social software for marketing, customer service and sales has increased by 40 percent in 2010, but social CRM remained less than 5 percent of the total CRM application market. And more than 100 vendors have social CRM offerings, but most are not profitable and generate annual revenue of less than $1 million.
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A few weeks ago, Juniper estimated that the transaction value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC transactions will reach a whopping $670 billion by 2015, up from $240 billion this year. Today Gartner is releasing its data report, taking a look at actual users of mobile payments services. Gartner’s research shows that mobile payment users worldwide will surpass 141.1 million in 2011, a 38.2 percent increase from 2010, in which mobile payment users reached 102.1 million. Worldwide mobile payment volume is projected to total $86.1 billion, up 75.9 percent from 2010 volume of $48.9 billion.
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Gartner has just released a report on mobile device sales for 2010, and unsurprisingly smartphone sales to end users were up 72.1 percent from 2009 and accounted for 19 percent of total mobile communications device sales in 2010. In terms of the fourth quarter, smartphones accounted for 22.2 percent of the quarter’s 452 million sales in mobile devices. Worldwide mobile device sales to end users totaled 1.6 billion units in 2010, a 31.8 percent increase from 2009.
The increase in smartphone sales helped push Apple and Research In Motion up in the ranking of global mobile device manufacturers to the No. 5 and No. 4 positions, respectively, displacing Sony Ericsson and Motorola. In Western Europe and North America accounted for 52.3 percent of global smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2010, with smartphones accounting for close to half of all handsets sold in these regions. → Read More
How big a business are mobile apps? In a new report, market research firm Gartner forecasts that global mobile app store revenues will triple from $5.2 billion last year to $15 billion in 2011, and keep growing to an astounding $58 billion by 2014. As with any forecast of a hypergrowth market, you can be sure this one will change in six months, and the further out you go the more guesswork involved. (Remember, less than a year ago nobody was even able to predict how many iPads would be sold this year). But here is one prediction you can count on: you will be hearing these numbers thrown around a lot all year long until a better forecast comes along.
Gartner breaks down the forecast into advertising revenues and paid downloads (including in-app purchases), as you can see from the chart above. Paid downloads and other direct purchases make up the majority of the expected revenues, but mobile advertising is expected to grow nicely over time into a multi-billion dollar market. → Read More
Gartner’s third quarter smartphone data is out today and it looks like Android is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds. According to the latest report, Android accounted for 25.5 percent of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the No. 2 operating system, rising from a 3.5 percent marketshare in the same quarter in 2009. Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, dropped from last year, from 17.1 percent in 2009 to 16.6 percent in 2010. Symbian took the top spot with 36.6 percent of sales share.
Gartner also said that global mobile phone sales totaled 417 million units in the third quarter of 2010, a 35 percent increase from the third quarter of 2009. Smartphone sales grew 96 percent from the third quarter last year, and smartphones accounted for 19.3 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2010. → Read More
Last year, Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled its worldwide market share of smartphone sales to 14.4 percent, up 6.2 points from the year before, according to the latest market share figures put out by Gartner. The iPhone still trails behind Nokia’s Symbian-powered smartphones (No. 1), which saw their share decline 5.5 points to 46.9 percent, and RIM Blackberries (No. 2), which gained 3.3 points to end the year with a 19.9 percent share.
Remember, these are worldwide estimates. In the U.S., both Blackberry and Apple are much larger than Symbian. And when it comes to mobile Web traffic, Apple and Android dominate with 81 percent share. According to Gartner, Android phone sales jumped 3.4 points (to 3.9 percent), but Android is still smaller than WIndows Mobile or Linux. Those mobile OSes, however, saw their market share drop 3.1 and 2.9 percent, respectively. Palm’s WebOS barely made a mark with 0.7 percent share. → Read More
Last year, Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled its worldwide market share of smartphone sales to 14.4 percent, up 6.2 points from the year before, according to the latest market share figures put out by Gartner. The iPhone still trails behind Nokia’s Symbian-powered smartphones (No. 1), which saw their share decline 5.5 points to 46.9 percent, and RIM Blackberries (No. 2), which gained 3.3 points to end the year with a 19.9 percent share.
Remember, these are worldwide estimates. In the U.S., both Blackberry and Apple are much larger than Symbian. And when it comes to mobile Web traffic, Apple and Android dominate with 81 percent share. According to Gartner, Android phone sales jumped 3.4 points (to 3.9 percent), but Android is still smaller than WIndows Mobile or Linux. Those mobile OSes, however, saw their market share drop 3.1 and 2.9 percent, respectively. Palm’s WebOS barely made a mark with 0.7 percent share. → Read More
Big news in the research world today: Gartner has announced that right at the end of 2009, it acquired competitor Burton Group for approximately $56 million in cash. Gartner financed the acquisition through the use of cash on hand and borrowings under its existing line of credit.
Burton Group is a Midvale, UT-headquartered research and advisory services firm that focuses on providing advice to IT professionals. According to the statement, Burton Group has approximately 41 research analysts, 40 sales and client service associates, and projected 2009 revenue of $30 million. → Read More
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