Our Forecast For Smartwatches — A $9 Billion Market In Five Years

Mobile Insights is a daily newsletter from BI Intelligence delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence subscribers. Sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence today.

BI Intelligence Forecast: Gauging The Global Market For Smartwatches (BII)
Expectations are high for smartwatches ahead of Samsung's release of its new Galaxy Gear device next week. In a new forecast published today on the fast-evolving smartwatch market, BI Intelligence's analysts explain why consumers will buy smartwatches and why the market will grow to $9 billion and some 90 million in unit sales by 2018. *Sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence to read our in-depth forecast. Read >

The Wearable Computing Trend And Phablets Put A Damper On Tablet Expectations (IDC)
International Data Corporation (IDC) expects global tablet shipments to reach 227.4 million units in 2013. This number is down from the company's earlier projection of 229.3 million. IDC says that its revision is due to increased competition from large-screen smartphones and mobile wearables as well as market maturity in the western world and Japan. Read >

Flurry_GlobalApps Data Spotlights Opportunities In The Fast-Globalizing App Market (Flurry)
Flurry's latest analysis tracks app usage in key mobile markets in order to determine, among other things, how much time consumers spend using apps developed domestically. The findings for China are eye-opening. China's app economy is still dominated by local apps. Chinese app users spend 64% of their time on apps developed locally. If more foreign app developers can make apps that catch on with Chinese users, there's great untapped market potential there. Read >

Q10 Keyboard Phone Doesn't Do It For BlackBerry (WSJ)
Just months after introducing its first touchscreen smartphone, the phone manufacturer decided to release a keyboard-equipped handset. Though sales numbers for the Q10 are not yet public, retailers have reported that there is very little demand for the device.

Top Android Exec Hugo Barra Leaves Google For Chinese Phone Maker Xiaomi (AllthingsD)
Barra's departure amid embarrassing rumors about ill-starred romantic relationships among executives could spell trouble for Google's Android division, which lost Android creator Andy Rubin earlier this year. While the operating system leads in powering smartphones, there is growing concern that, apart from Samsung, device manufactures will not be able to turn a profit on Android-equipped devices. The fact that Xiaomi just overtook Apple in China smartphone sales only adds salt to the wound. Read >

Investors Are Betting On ShopPad To Bring E-tailers To The Tablet (TechCrunch)
ShopPad, a software-as-a-service start-up that optimizes e-commerce websites for tablets, announced that is received $500,000 in seed funding. Over 10,000 merchants use the service to date. Funding for ShopPad provides further support for the tablet as a mobile shopping device. Read >

The Mobile Ad Network Sees Its Star Fade (Digiday)
This year, multichannel ad sales behemoths Google and Facebook will increase their control of global mobile ad revenue to 68%. This success is in contrast to stand-alone ad networks that are mobile-focused, which have struggled to turn a profit. The trend shows that scaled mobile advertising has become hyper-consolidated, and there might not be room for mobile-only minnows. Read >

10M Users Flock To Peel's Apps In One Quarter (Venturebeat)
After a quarter of phenomenal growth Peel announced that its TV selection platform reached 25 million users. The company's mobile technology allows users to select television content from their phones for their TV, much like a television remote control. Peel founder Bala Krishnan says that the company's products deliver over 1.1 billion content recommendations a month, making peel an exciting addition to the multi-screen story. Read >

Mobile Will Drive Over A Fifth Of Google's US Revenue (eMarketer)
eMarketer estimates that 22.9% of Google's U.S. revenue will come from mobile search. While the increase has been dramatic for Google, competitors Facebook and Twitter continue to be far more dependent on mobile as a source revenue. eMarketer expects mobile to account for 42.4% of Facebook's revenue and 55% of Twitter's revenue this year. Read >

Skype Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary (Quartz)
Skype turns 10. To celebrate, Quartz has a great infographic that chronicles the past 10 year of Internet telephony. The internet phone service provider is currently used for about one-third of international calls. Read >

The History Of Mobile Technology in Business [Infographic] (SwitchPay)
At BII, our goal is to put mobile in context. This infographic is nice way of showing how far the industry has come over the years. See below:

BII_HistoryOfMobileTech