Online Video Viewing Continues To Boom
December 10, 2009
DVR and online video continue to show considerable growth in the U.S., up 21.1% and 34.9 percent respectively, in time spent in the third quarter of 2009, according Nielsen's latest Three Screen Report.
In Q3, the average American watched 31 hours of TV per week, with 31 minutes spending playback mode with their DVR.
In addition, each week the average consumer spent 4 hours on the Internet and 22 minutes watching online video.
The average consumer spent 3 minutes watching mobile video each week.
"Americans today have an insatiable appetite for not only content, but also choice," says Nic Covey, director of cross-platform insights at Nielsen.
"Across all age groups, we see consumers adding the Internet and mobile devices to their media diet - consuming media anytime and anywhere possible."
Online video viewing is also on the rise, with Internet users watching 53 more minutes of video online in Q3 compared to the previous year.
Time spent among overall mobile video viewers remains consistent, with teens reporting the most time spent on average watching mobile, at just over 7 hours per month. Older mobile video users age 45-54 reported viewing 3 hours on their mobile phones each month.
Social networks are becoming a popular source for online video. Time spent viewing video on social networking sites increased 98 percent from October 2008 to October 2009. Older demographics are also helping to drive the growth in video consumption with in social media. The 35 to 49 year old segment increased their viewership time by 37 percent and those over 65 increased their viewership 47 percent year-over-year.
Mobile video viewing continues to grow, with 15.7 million Americans viewing video on their mobile phone in Q3, an increase of 53 percent over last year.
Have You Read This?
> YouTube Gets Well Over A Billion Views Per Day
> Online Video Viewing Sees New High In August
> MTV Offering...Music Videos?
eBay Back On Its Feet After Search/Browse Outage
November 23, 2009
eBay suffered a significant malfunction this weekend as an unspecified "technical issue" affected users' ability to both search and browse listings for most of Saturday. Now, the site's been restored to working order, but a lot of sellers remain extremely unhappy.
Lorrie Norrington, the president of eBay Marketplaces, tried to do a bit of damage control by stating, "We know this is a really busy time for sellers ramping up for the holiday season. We're sorry that this technical issue occurred . . . and we regret any potential impact to your business. Our teams worked around the clock to restore functionality as quickly as possible."
Norrington also hinted at the possibility of a financial peace offering, adding, "We will now be assessing the economic impact of this issue and will be compensating sellers appropriately. In the meantime, we will be issuing full fee credits automatically for affected listings."
Still, in the absence of significant compensation, many sellers aren't in a good mood at the moment. A post on eBay Ink, an official corporate blog, has attracted 30 comments so far, and it's possible to find longer (and less politely worded) threads elsewhere. Given that many sellers were already unhappy with fees and policies, eBay may lose a significant amount of business due to the outage.
Traffic to eBay is up on a year-over-year basis, however (at least according to Compete), and the company's stock has risen an impressive 2.61 percent so far this morning.
Have You Read This?
> eBay Hits Q3 Targets, Gives Iffy Guidance
> Some eBay Sellers Disgruntled Over Top Rated Sellers Program
Smartphone Sales Up 12% In Q3
November 14, 2009
Global mobile phone sales reached 308.9 million units in the third quarter of 2009, a slight increase of 0.1 percent from the third quarter of 2008, according to a new report from Gartner.
Smartphone sales showed solid growth with more than 41 million units sold for a 12.8 percent increase from the same period last year.
"The third quarter of 2009 saw the announcement of many new mobile devices, including several Android smartphones ready for the holiday season in the fourth quarter, but hardware commoditisation and the growth in open platforms will make it harder for them to stand out," said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner.
"Many devices will reach the market in time for Christmas, and mobile carriers will run incentives for consumers during the holidays. We expect sales of mobile devices in the fourth quarter of 2009 to show year-over-year growth," said Ms Milanesi.
"As many vendors and industry watchers call for a decrease in sales into the channel, our sell through data is showing that 2009 performance will be flat rather than down over 2008."
Nokia led the mobile market in Q3 with 36.7 percent of the share, followed by Samsung at 19.6 percent and LG with 10.3 percent market share.
Nokia also ranked at the top in smartphone sales with 39.3 percent of the market, followed by Blackberry maker Research in Motion with 20.8 percent and Apple with 17.1 percent.
"Smartphones continued to represent the fastest-growing segment of the mobile-devices market and we remain confident about the potential for smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2009 and in 2010," said Ms Milanesi.
Have You Read This?
>Google Launches Custom Search For Smartphones
>Buy A Blackberry From Walmart Get A $100 Gift Card
>Apple And LG Rank High In Consumer Satisfaction
Mobile Phone Market Shows Signs Of Improvement
October 30, 2009
The global mobile phone market saw slight growth in the third quarter, according to IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.
Year-on-year growth remained negative, but improved from the first half of 2009. Mobile shipments totaled 287.1 million units worldwide in Q3, down from 6 percent from the previous year, but up 5.6 percent from the second quarter.
"The mobile phone market is showing the first signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team.
"During the third quarter, we saw a number of channels promoting older devices at significantly lower prices. For many, this was enough to spur demand and push volumes higher. Now that we have moved into the fourth quarter, vendors are setting the stage for further gains by launching their flagship devices to meet pent-up demand."
The North American market posted mixed results for Q3. The United States posted positive results, with mobile devices and prepaid handsets once again driving growth. The Canadian mobile phone market declined for the third straight despite double-digit mobile device growth.
Nokia took the top spot in market share with 37.8 percent, but its year-on year growth dipped 8 percent. Samsung landed in the second spot with 21 percent market share and positive year-on-year growth of 15.9 percent.
"Although some regions are still reeling from problems associated with the economic crisis, the third quarter served to cleanse the channel while providing the signs of stability necessary for additional improvement in the fourth quarter," said Will Stofega, research manager of IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team
Have You Read This?
>Apple And LG Rank High In Consumer Satisfaction
>Google Launches Custom Search For Smartphones
>Usage Of Mobile Web And Apps Doubles In 2 Years
