Streaming Video Demand will Create Display Options

Soon, just about every type of video-capable consumer electronics device (CE) will have the option to connect to a large screen video monitor or HDTV display. This list of devices will include most portable PCs -- with media tablets being one of the commonly used streaming video players.

Digital visual interface (DVI) and high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) are related high-bandwidth, unidirectional, uncompressed interface standards, while DisplayPort is a fully digital, packet-based technology.

HDMI and DisplayPort have recently gained in popularity within the computer industry. A number of computer vendors and display makers have said that they will stop using legacy DVI and VGA connectors within the next few years.

Nevertheless, many devices are still shipping with DVI connectors. According to the latest market study by NPD In-Stat, they forecast that the combined total number of devices shipped with DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort will surpass 2 billion in 2015.

"DVI has no roadmap to upgrade the specification; it is essentially the same as it was upon its launch in 1999," said Brian O'Rourke, Research Director at NPD In-Stat.

HDMI and DisplayPort, on the other hand, have made significant strides in a number of markets. HDMI-enabled device shipments will increase at a 17 percent annual rate through 2015 and DisplayPort-enabled device shipments will reach 1 billion.

Other details from this market study include:

• Embedded DisplayPort will have a 95 percent attach rate in notebook PCs in 2015.
• 19 million desktop PCs will ship with DVI in 2012.
• HDMI will have a 94 percent attach rate in Blu-ray players in 2013.
• Over 118 million external DisplayPort-enabled tablets will ship in 2015.

How Online Privacy Policy will Impact All Marketers

According to the latest market assessment by eMarketer, growing online privacy concerns involve three primary stakeholder groups -- consumers, government and the collective advertising industry. Those concerns have been heightened by recent examples of disclosure failures and the apparent lack of consumer trust in many of the recognized industry players.

People are becoming increasingly concerned about their online privacy. Government entities in the U.S. market and elsewhere are looking to address that anxiety through laws, regulations and new policy pressure on the digital advertising ecosystem.

That last category -- which includes advertisers, ad agencies, media companies, websites, retailers, search engines and related vendors -- is looking to satisfy both government and consumer demands through self-regulation, and tools like Do Not Track (DNT) headers.

"There are many key factors in the privacy debate, including control, transparency and value, along with the concept of privacy itself," said David Hallerman, principal analyst at eMarketer.

Attempts to overhaul online privacy standards and related data issues is believed to be complicated by raised expectations. According to a November 2011 study from the American Consumer Institute, nearly two-thirds of consumers don't trust some companies -- i.e. Facebook -- with their personal information.

But there are obvious ways to alleviate privacy concerns. The public clearly values transparency about exactly what data companies collect and how they use it. They also expect control over their own data. Companies that mock these ideals merely fuel the growing distrust.

What internet users want, according to a survey from loyalty management company Aimia, include knowing what data is being collected, a means to opt in to location tracking (instead of the typical default, opt out) and the ability to set privacy preferences once and make them applicable across sites using a portable profile.

That being said, even though transparency helps to calm some privacy concerns, many online providers are not entirely transparent about their actions -- until they're outed by an informer. Also, user controls that are complicated to invoke will likely be viewed as a deceptive practice.

"The entire advertising ecosystem must continue to come up with more sophisticated methods of self-regulation, such as the DNT header, and to educate both the public and government about how data is used and its importance in the digital economy," said Hallerman.

"To both manage consumers’ privacy concerns and assuage government misgivings, the digital advertising ecosystem will have to realize that it shares -- rather than owns -- audience data."

How Wi-Fi Enables In-Home P2P Device Connectivity

The adoption of over-the-top video services, such as Netflix and Hulu, has created a increasing demand for wireless connectivity that's built-in to the numerous related consumer electronics (CE) devices that are used within the home.

Increasingly, home video entertainment devices such as digital HDTVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and all versions of pay-TV set-top boxes (STBs) are coming to the market Wi-Fi-enabled -- so that devices can connect to the web and to each other.

According to the latest market study by NPD In-Stat, their research shows that the evolution of the home network will drive the number of in-home video WLAN-enabled video devices to approach 600 million in 2015.

"Wi-Fi has moved from a nice-to-have feature to a must-have feature as it provides the connectivity necessary to support IP-based video content." says Frank Dickson, Vice President of Research at NPD In-Stat.

It's important to note though that Wi-Fi is growing from being simply about getting content from a network to devices, to sharing content between devices -- as Wi-Fi evolves from being a network-centric connectivity standard to one that enables peer-to-peer (P2P) device connectivity.

New innovations such as Wi-Fi Display and Wi-Fi Direct will fundamentally change the way that digital media content is moved and shared in the home.

Some of the NPD In-Stat market study findings include:

• Digital TVs will reach a 40 percent WLAN-attach rate by 2015.
• In 2014, mobile hotspots will have an 802.11n attach rate of 98 percent.
• Over 28 million WLAN-enabled Blu-ray players will ship in 2013.
• The 802.11ac standard will achieve an attach rate in mini-notebooks of 23 percent in 2015.

Americans Viewed 7.1 Billion Video Ads in December

Online video consumption reached record highs during 2011. The last month of the year also ended on a high note. comScore released data showing that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December of 2011 for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer. That same U.S. Internet audience viewed a combined total of 43.5 billion videos.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in December with 157.2 million unique viewers, while VEVO ranked second with 53.7 million. Yahoo! Sites ranked third with 53.3 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 45.8 million and Facebook.com with 42 million.

More than 43 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 21.9 billion. The average viewer watched 23.2 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.9 hours) and Hulu (3 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.

Americans viewed 7.1 billion video ads in December, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at nearly 1.5 billion, followed by Adap.tv in second with 1.1 billion. Tremor Video ranked third with 942 million, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with 872 million and Specific Media with 496 million.

Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 3 billion minutes during the month, with Adap.tv delivering the highest duration of video ads at 636 million minutes. Video ads reached 51 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 46 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 46.

The December 2011 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channels VEVO (53.5 million viewers) and Warner Music (31.7 million viewers) maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 22.7 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 10.4 million, FullScreen with 9.7 million and Big Frame with 8.3 million.

Among the top 10 YouTube partners, VEVO demonstrated the highest engagement (67 minutes per viewer) and highest number of videos viewed (782 million), while Machinima exhibited the second highest engagement (64 minutes per viewer) and number of videos viewed (340 million).

Other findings from the December 2011 study include:

• 85.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The duration of the average online content video was 5.8 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
• Video ads accounted for 14.1 percent of all videos viewed and 1.2 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Upside Opportunity for M2M Reaches $35B by 2016

The M2M market has become a fully mainstream segment of the mobile network service provider industry. By the end of 2011, most major mobile operators in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region had established M2M business units to focus their efforts in this fast growing market.

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, the market for cumulative cellular M2M connections will rise from about 110 million connections in 2011 to approximately 365 million connections by 2016.

This increase represents a compounded annual growth rate of about 27 percent by 2016 -- and translates to about $35 billion in connectivity services revenue.

The two largest cellular M2M market segments over the forecast period, by revenue, will be automotive telematics and smart energy.

Automotive telematics, including factory-installed systems such as GM’s OnStar service, aftermarket services such as usage-based insurance, and fleet management systems, will together represent more than $15.5 billion in 2016.

Meanwhile, smart energy, specifically cellular connectivity to smart meters and data concentrators, will represent more than $7.5 billion in 2016.

"As mobile operators further develop their M2M service offerings, software platforms and M2M application developer support will feature as increasingly larger components of the operators’ services," says Sam Lucero, practice director, M2M connectivity at ABI Research.

For example, AT&T announced on January 9, 2012 that it would be reselling Axeda’s M2M application platform in a U.S. carrier exclusive deal. This platform will enable AT&T customers to more easily develop and deploy complex M2M applications.

Why Solid State Storage Demand will Grow in 2012

Flash memory technology advancements, changes in the expectations for new mobile PC capabilities, enterprise server and storage architectures, and hard disk drive (HDD) shortages are all impacting the worldwide solid state storage (SSD) market.

Chromebooks and media tablets are just one example of where the requirement for fast start-up and instant-resume access to the client device has raised the bar on design considerations. Informed people simply won't accept the legacy mobile PC constraints. The demand for superior SSD technology has risen as a result.

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the worldwide solid state storage industry revenue reached $5 billion in 2011 -- that's a 105 percent increase from the $2.4 billion in 2010.

IDC expects the SSD market will expand further in 2012 and beyond.

"2011 was a record year for the worldwide SSD market, with revenue more than doubling year over year due to strong SSD shipment growth in the enterprise and client segments," said Jeff Janukowicz, research director, Solid State Storage and Hard Disk Drive Components at IDC.

The increasing use of flash memory in enterprise solutions, explosive growth of mobile client devices, and lower SSD pricing is creating a huge demand for increased SSD shipments and revenue over the forecast period.

Other findings from the IDC market study include:

• IDC expects worldwide SSD shipments to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51.5 percent from 2010 to 2015.
• Pricing remains a key metric for SSD adoption in both the client and enterprise markets. IDC expects client SSD prices will fall below $1 per gigabyte in the second half of 2012, which will boost adoption in the PC market.
• There are a number of dynamics influencing the PC market, from the growth in media tablets and ultrabooks to the upcoming introduction of Windows 8 and increased use of caching solutions such as dual drives (systems containing both an SSD and an HDD). IDC believes the net effect of these dynamics supports increased SSD shipments.
• The flood in Thailand is disrupting the PC supply chain and the HDD industry's ability to supply the market near term. OEMs will certainly face unavoidable HDD shortages and higher HDD prices in 1H 2012. These shortages will present a significant short term opportunity for SSD vendors as OEM customers look to SSD vendors to fill HDD supply gaps.
• The adoption of solid state storage as a complementary solution to HDD storage for enterprise applications is also driving SSD market growth.

Volatility in Overall PC Market Creates Uncertainty

Personal Computer (PC) shipments totaled 92.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11), down 0.2 percent compared to the same quarter in 2010, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Shortages of hard disk drives (HDDs) added to challenges from slow economic conditions and competition from other consumer electronics -- including media tablets, eReaders and smartphones.

The 4Q11 results reflected a year-on-year decline of 0.2 percent for the quarter and growth of 1.6 percent for the full year. This was in-line with IDC projections of a 0.6 percent decline for the fourth quarter and 1.5 percent growth for all of 2011.

Despite the overall market volatility, most regions slightly exceeded forecast. Most Tier 1 PC vendors had access to sufficient HDD supply, though smaller PC vendors and retail channels experienced drive shortages.

"Europe and Asia-Pacfic came in a little stronger than expected, reflecting improvement in key markets and the strength of underlying demand in emerging regions," said Loren Loverde, vice president, Worldwide Consumer Device Trackers at IDC.

PC Market Outlook Contains Some Uncertainty

In the United States, market saturation and the economic environment continue to weigh considerably on consumer demand. However, the market is awaiting new products and technologies. That said, what happens if the promise of Ultrabook PCs doesn't materialize in significant new demand?

IDC expects the market to slow further in the first quarter of 2012 as the full impact of the HDD shortage is felt, and hopefully recover to greater than 15 percent growth in the fourth quarter.

Annual 2012 shipments are currently projected at 371 million, an increase of 5.4 percent, followed by growth in high teens during the first half of 2013 and annual growth over 11 percent.

Let's not forget, the U.S. market had its second worst year in history in 2011, dropping nearly 5 percent from 2010.

Although not as severe as the 11.7 percent contraction following the Y2K buildup and subsequent tech crisis of 2001, 2011 was particularly affected by HDD supply constraints, very weak demand, and a difficult competitive landscape. The fourth quarter's HDD supply shortage has had a notable effect on fourth quarter shipments. It's not clear what the ongoing impact may be for the PC market.