Category Archives: Mobile Devices

Wireless Speakers Enabled by Personal Assistants

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Amazon Echo and Google Home are two versions of wireless speakers that do more than play music. They are also voice-activated personal assistants. Some of their capabilities include adjusting a smart thermostat, turning lights on or off, arranging a ride through Uber, and delivering the news, sports, and weather. As prices have come down for these devices, in some cases retailing for less than $50, popularity has risen.

Today’s market size is the value of the market for voice-activated wireless speakers/personal assistants in 2015 and the projected value of the market in 2020 according to Gartner. The value of the market is expected to increase more than 5-fold in this 5-year period.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2015 and projection for 2020
Market size: $360 million and a projected $2.1 billion respectively
Source: Ed Baig, “Google Home Plays Catch-Up to Echo, with Promise,” USA Today for the Lansing State Journal, November 6, 2016, page 6B
Original source: Gartner.

Wireless Systems in Cars

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Nearly all automakers offer some sort of wireless network in their cars, such as General Motors’ OnStar and Ford’s SYNC. Data show the estimated revenue from wireless devices in cars in 2013. This figure is projected to increase tenfold by 2025.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2013
Market size: $2.5 billion
Source: Andy Greenberg, “Digital Carjackers,” Forbes, August 12, 2013, pages 44-46
Original source: GSMA, a mobile industry trade group
Posted on August, 15, 2013

Tablets versus e-Readers

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Two relatively new devices in the world of mobile, electronic devices are often compared. They do similar things and yet, they are not the same. These are tablets and e-readers. Because tablets tend to offer more functionality than do e-readers, one of those functions being to serve as an e-Reader, the sales for these devices are often compared. And, in recent years, tablets have been steadily outselling e-readers.

Today’s market size post is the number of tablets and e-readers sold around the world in 2010 and a projection of that market for next year, 2013.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2010 and 2013 projection
Market size: Tablets: 19 million units and 172 million respectively
Market size: e-Readers: 13 million units and 18 million respectively
Source: Felix Richter, “Are Tablets Killing E-Readers?” Statista.com, July 12, 2012, available online with an interesting chart here.
Original source: IDC, MIC
Posted on December 11, 2012

Launchers for UAVs

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Some unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are controlled by a navigator from a remote location and others fly autonomously based on pre-programmed flight plans. These aircraft carry cameras, sensors, and communication equipment. Unmanned combat aerial vehicles, also known as combat drones, are armed and have been used in various wars since the 1980s.

Although unmanned aerial vehicles are used primarily by the military, recently they’ve also been used in fighting large fires, in support of border patrol activities, and in the surveillance of pipelines. Launchers for these vehicles are portable so that they can be placed in remote areas, without a need for an airport. They are also modular so that components can be replaced easily and used in multiple configurations. Data show the market size of the launchers for unmanned aerial vehicles for 2011 and estimated market size for 2018.

Geographic reference: Worldwide
Year: 2011 and 2018
Market Size: $118 million and $1.3 billion respectively
Sources: “Summary: Launchers for Unmanned Aerial Systems and Targets: Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2012 to 2018,” ReportLinker, August 2012, available online here; “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle,” Wikipedia, October 7, 2012, available online here; “Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle,” Wikipedia, October 2, 2012, available online here; and “Unmanned Aerial System,” Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, 2012, available online here.
Posted on October 12, 2012

Home Wireless Routers

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Many people who own tablet computers, laptops, and e-readers own wireless routers. Wireless routers allow them to connect to the Internet through these devices from anywhere in their homes. Data show sales of home wireless routers in 2005 and 2011.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2005 and 2011
Market Size: $700 million and $1.3 billion respectively
Source: Tamara Chuang, “When the Home’s Most Important Internet Device Fails,” The Street, September 17, 2012, available online here.
Original Source: Dell’Oro Group
Posted on September 26, 2012

Computers in the U.S.

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The steady rise in demand for computers and electronic computing devices in the United States appears, when charted, as a line moving in exactly the opposite direction as the domestic production and shipments of these same products. This is an industry (NAICS 334111) that highlights a trend towards increasing consumption of a product and declining production of the same which feeds the U.S. trade imbalance. But that leads us to complex questions we don’t really want to address here. Here, we present market sizes and today’s is based on the value of Electronic Computer Manufacturing in the United States in 2000 and 2010 as well as the value of net imports of the same products in 2000 and the forecasted value for 2010.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2000 and 2010
Market size: U.S. manufacturing $69.3 and $27.9 billion
Market size: Net imports $89.4 and $199.3 billion
Source: Computer value of shipments from Annual Survey of Manufactures 1997, and the 2002 Economic Census. Net imports of Electric and Electronic Equipment from Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2000. Net imports of Computers and Electronic Products from Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012.
Posted on November 29, 2011

Headphone Market

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The arrival of a new, high-end, expensive and very fashionable headphone has stirred up the market for headphones. Headphones are a reasonably mature product segment which was infused with energy over recent years by earbuds that are commonly used with MP3 players of all sorts as well as cell phones and other small recording devices. But it was the arrival on the scene of the headphone, Beats by Dr. Dre, that reinvigorated the market most recently, the sales of which account for nearly a quarter of the market size listed below. Celebrity meets audio equipment and the market expands. Increased hearing loss in adolescents may be part of the unseen price being paid.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2011
Market size: $2 billion
Source: “Headphones With Swagger (and Lots of Bass),” The New York Times, Sunday, November 20, 2011, page B1, available online here. Also, “One in Five U.S. Adolescents Has Hearing Loss, Researchers Find,”
Bloomberg.com, August 17, 2010, available online here.
Original source: NPD Group and Journal of the American Medical Association
Posted on November 21, 2011

MHealth

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The term “mHealth” is one being used to help define a category of medical services and devices and a growing part of the healthcare industry. It stands most simply for mobile health care, more fully “emerging mobile communications and network technology for healthcare.”

This market encompasses the use of mobile technology in the service of providing health care. It includes all those applications which combine body sensors with mobile or static devices designed to monitor a patient’s vital signs or some specific bodily function. The infrastructure behind these devices is also part of the category. An example of such a device is an electrode patch which may be worn by a patient and automatically sends the monitoring center information about the patient while he or she is on-the-go. The information is sent by a tiny radio transmitter built into the epidermal electronic device.

Today’s market size is the estimated size of the market for mHealth products in 2010 and a forecast for the size in 2014. Please note, however, that this market has yet to be well defined and as a result various research firms have come up with widely disparate projections of its size. The source listed below provides a link to an article explaining this problem more fully, titled “mHealth predictions: $1.9B, $4.4B, $4.6B?” Defining the market is key!

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010 and a forecast for 2014
Market size: $1.5 and $4.6 billion respectively
Source: “Market Size Projections for mHealth and Wireless Health,” Wireless Health Strategies, March 19, 2010, available online here.
Original source: CSMG, a division of TMBG Global
Posted on September 06, 2011

The Public Cloud

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Cloud computing is, in the simplest terms, the use of a remote location, accessible through the Internet, to store the data and applications used on a computer. We discuss this market in more detail in a post from May 3rd. Today’s market size is the size of the public cloud which is defined by the source as a service that is commercially offered to an “unrestricted marketplace of potential users.”

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2010 and forecast for 2015
Market size: $21.5 and $72.9 billion respectively
Source: Larry Dignan, “IDC: Public Cloud Market Will Hit $72.9 Billion in 2015,” ZDNet, June 20, 2011, available online here.
Original source: IDC

Cloud Computing

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A term we hear quite often these days is cloud computing. The personal computer revolution was, in part, a step away from what were then the large, centralized mainframe computers on which data was stored and accessed through workstations. With a personal computer, one had everything on his or her own device. Now, in a way, there is a decoupling again of the data from the device. Cloud computing is, in the simplest terms, the use of a remote location, accessible through the Internet, to store the data and applications used on a computer—instead of a hard drive on the local computer or local network of computers.

This is a growing business but one whose boundaries are still being defined, which makes it difficult to measure. It is hard to keep the image of a person trying to measure a cloud from coming to mind. Consequently, one can find many different size estimates for cloud computing, the differences usually having to do with how the market is defined. What we present here is an estimate of the revenue from business cloud services—hardware and software infrastructure as well as the leasing of space—so it does not include, for example, the services provided to people wishing to back-up their family photo albums. Cloud computing services to the individual is another large business and one that may be included in other estimates of the nebulous cloud computing market.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2010 and forecast for 2014
Market size: $22.2 billion and $55.5 billion respectively
Source: Lohr, Steve, “The Business Market Plays Cloud Computing Catch-Up,” The New York Times, April 15, 2011, page B16
Original source: IDC

App Store Sales

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We hear a lot about “apps” these days, or application programs. But what are they, really. These are computer programs designed as standalone software to run on a variety of devices, usually mobile devices. These apps are sold through online stores and usually have a well defined and somewhat limited purpose. They usually have a filename extension “.app” for use on mobile operating systems such as Android; iOS (Apple); Linux; MeeGo; Microsoft Mobile; RIM (BlackBerry); and Symbian.

Apps are a class of products whose market is based on volume. The average price of an app is around $2.50, (reached with a lot sold for 99¢ and a few sold for $9.00 plus) so a whole lot of apps had to sell in order to reach the market size presented below. There are 5 billion mobile device subscribers worldwide, according the the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Now, all mobile devices are not “smart” devices and thus are not equipped to run apps. Nonetheless, based on the fact that an estimated 10% of these 5 billion devices are smart we can calculate, very generally, that each one of these smart device owners bought just under two apps in 2010. There seems room for growth here…

As a side note, that figure of 5 billion mobile device subscribers is rather noteworthy given that the world population in 2010 was just shy of 7 billion. Food for thought.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2010
Market size: $2.15 billion
Source: Whitney, Lance, “Report: Apple Remains King of App Store Market,” CNET News, February 15, 2011, available online here. Also, press release from the ITU which is available online here.
Original source: IHS Screen Digest, February 2011

Mobile Phones Worldwide

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The market size listed here is the number of mobile phones sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2010, of which, 19.3% were smartphones, as we saw in our last market size entry.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 3rd Quarter 2010
Market size: 417 million units
Source: “Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 35 Percent in Third Quarter 2010; Smartphone Sales Increased 96 Percent,” Gartner Newsroom press release dated November 10, 2010 and available online here.
Original source: Gartner Inc.

Smartphones

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The definition of a smartphone, according to PC Magazine, is as follows: “A cellular telephone with built-in applications and Internet access. Smartphones provide digital voice service as well as text messaging, e-mail, Web browsing, still and video cameras, MP3 player and video and TV viewing.” In addition to their built-in functions smartphones can run a variety of computer applications which makes them true computing devices. All of this functionality varies from smartphone to smartphone and to a large degree depends on the operating systems that run these devices. The leading smartphone operating systems, based on units currently in use, are (1) Apple’s iPhone OS, (2) RIM Blackberry OS, and (3) Google’s Android OS.

The market size listed here shows the number of smartphones sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2010. Smartphone sales in this quarter represented 19.3% of all mobile phone sales.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 3rd Quarter 2010
Market size: 80.5 million units
Source: “Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 35 Percent in Third Quarter 2010; Smartphone Sales Increased 96 Percent,” Gartner Newsroom press release dated November 10, 2010 and available online here.
Original source: Gartner Inc.