Centri Technology

Goldman bullish on tablets, wireless data growth

admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 02:47:14 +0000

Goldman Sachs’ investment research arm expects a coming boom in wireless data consumption fueled by 4G wireless services and the rise of mobile tablet computers.

Goldman projects that wireless data traffic will account for the majority of traffic sent over wireless networks as measured by minutes of use equivalents starting next year. From there, Goldman says wireless data usage will surge by more than six-fold by the year 2020 even as wireless voice usage will remain essentially the same. In terms of revenues, Goldman expects wireless data to generate nearly triple over the next two years, shooting up to $205 billion by the end of 2012.

IDC: Smartphone shipments to surge 55% this year

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:31:48 +0000

Smartphone makers have a reason to celebrate. Research firm IDC said it expects the smartphone market to grow 55 percent this year, a greater increase than its previous prediction.

IDC said it now expects handset vendors to ship 269.6 million smartphones this year, compared with the 173.5 million units shipped in 2009. The estimate is 10 percent higher than IDC had previously estimated. The research firm said the introduction of several new smartphones–including Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 4, Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry Torch and the HTC Evo–caused it to increase its forecast. The smartphone market also will be crowded by more phones running Google’s Android platform, IDC said.

Smartphone makers have a reason to celebrate. Research firm IDC said it expects the smartphone market to grow 55 percent this year, a greater increase than its previous prediction.

Survey finds global support for usage-based data pricing

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:53:55 +0000

A new survey of hundreds of wireless industry executives from around the world found strong support for a switch from flat-rate mobile data plans to usage-based models.

The survey, conducted for the London law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP by the Economist Intelligence Unit, found that 48 percent of executives surveyed predicted that carriers will focus on developing new mobile data pricing models over the next three years. Additionally, the survey showed that 55 percent of those surveyed agreed usage-based models are coming to mature markets, and 47 percent said flat-rate data plans are crimping their ability to increase revenue.

Report: Android OS Grew by 47% In July; iPad Requests up 327%

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:10:44 +0000

Mobile ad network Millennial Media is releasing its monthly mobile mix report today. According to Nielsen, Millennial’s ads reach 63 million of a total of 77 million mobile web users in the U.S., or 81% of the U.S. mobile web. In July, Android OS grew at a faster clip than in June, with requests increasing by 47 percent, compared to a 23 percent growth in the previous month. Since January, Android OS requests have grown 690 percent. Android has also surpassed RIM to became the number two OS on the Millennial network (surpassing RIM).

Apple ad requests increased 24 percent month-over-month, and are up 15 percent since January. However, iPad requests continue to show massive growth, rising 327 percent in July. RIM ad requests increased 18 percent month-over-month, rising 66 percent since January.

Data use now the norm on cellphones

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:55:54 +0000

A forthcoming study by Validas shows 53 percent of all cellphone subscribers are data users, up from 42 percent last year. The average data usage per subscriber is now 145.8MB a month compared with 96.8MB a month last year. Most of that is simply the result of more data users, though it does suggest those with data capabilities are using slightly more each month.

AT&T Mobility CEO On Hot Seat At Fortune Brainstorm

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:48:41 +0000

Fortune’s Stephanie Mehta asked Ralph De la Vega, President & CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, if his relationship with Apple has been a net positive or negative experience. Not surprisingly, De la Vega says it was a tremendous net positive…

Mobile Internet booming in China

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:52:30 +0000

But what’s actually even more interesting is the number of people that go online on a mobile device. At the end of June 2010 there were almost 277 million mobile Internet users in China. That is more than the total number of people that are online in the US. Amazing how this number is growing (44 million new users over the past 6 months), and I think it’s just the beginning. Phones with wifi only now start to appear on the Chinese market (for a long time phones were not allowed to have wifi here) and also 3G is taking off after it was launched in 2009…

3 boosts mobile data cap and scraps ‘unlimited’ claims

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:43:07 +0000

In characteristically strong terms, 3 chief executive Kevin Russell recanted his company’s earlier policy of using the term ‘unlimited’ when advertising its voice, text messages and mobile data plans, when fair use policies were in place. Anyone going over 3’s 500MB monthly fair use data limit gets charged 10p per megabyte, or £100 per gigabyte, over that cap…

Network-efficient apps will score points with consumers, carriers and financiers

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:04:58 +0000

One outcome of AT&T Mobility’s decision earlier this month to put an end to its unlimited data plans in favor of usage-based plans (new smartphone customers pay $15 per month for 200 MB of data or $25 per month for 2 GB of data), is that it highlights the need for the mobile developer community to design network-efficient applications….

Data caps force app developers to be efficient

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:49:37 +0000

As unlimited mobile data plans become a thing of the past for many wireless smartphone subscribers, developers will have to think more carefully about how efficiently their apps use network resources. For the past couple of years app developers haven’t had to worry too much about whether their applications consumed a lot of data resources on wireless networks. Cell phone carriers, such as AT&T and others around the world like O2 in the U.K., offered smartphone users, especially iPhone customers, unlimited data plans…