Smartphone Market

Smartphone is a term basically designed to distinguish mobile phones with advanced features from basic feature phones.Earlier, these advanced features included features like  personal digital assistant (PDA), a media player, a digital camera, and/or a GPS navigation unit. But now a days, smartphones work on powerful Operating systems include  all of those features plus the features of a laptop, including web browsing, Wi-Fi, and 3rd-party apps and accessories. The main two operating systems which have created a big revolution in today's smartphone era are :-

1) Android OS (by Google)

2) iOS (by Apple)

In 2007, Apple Inc. brought  iPhone in the market, one of the first mobile phones to use a multi-touch interface. The iPhone was notable for its use of a large touchscreen for direct finger input as its main means of interaction, instead of a stylus, keyboard, and/or keypad typical for smartphones at the time. 2008 saw the release of the first phone to use Android called the HTC Dream.Android is an open-source platform founded by Andy Rubin and backed by Google.The most popular smartphones today are now powered by these two mobile operating systems.

Smartphone Market :-

The total global mobile phone and smartphone market is expected to be worth $341.4 billion by 2015 while smartphone revenue will account for 75.8% of the overall mobile handset revenue at $258.9 billion in the same year. Smartphones are currently witnessing high growth due to a host of factors, including lower product cost, improved handset design and functionalities, the expansion of global mobile email and browsing services, the emergence of 3G and 4G network technologies, the rising competition among mobile carriers, and the standardization and upgrades of operating systems.

The competition in the smartphone market place is at the peak and vendors are finding it difficult to maintain their market shares. Market leader Nokia has lost considerable market share over the past two years; to a market share of 32.8% in Q3’10 from 42.6% in the same quarter two years ago. Apple, on the other hand, gained 211% market share in Q3’09 over Q3’08 and then lost approximately 15% market share in same quarter in 2010 under the growing popularity of Android operating system and more number of devices switching to it.

HTC and Samsung joined the Android popularity wave and are now the clear beneficiaries. Samsung gained 316% market share in Q3’10 over Q3’09 while HTC gained 160% market share during the same period.

The global market for smartphones operating systems (OS) is dominated by Europe with a 37% market share. Asia-Pacific follows with a share of 31%, accounted for mainly by Japan, Korea, China, and India. Symbian is the most popular mobile OS in Europe and Asia, while Blackberry OS dominates the North American OS market. IPhones mobile OS has shown a high growth rate in the North American market in last two years, and is expected to have a double-digit growth rate in next few years as well.

(Reference for market info :- 

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/16437548-global-smartphones-market-worth-us1503-billion-by-2014)

Animation And Gaming Market

The process of producing a continuous motion and shape change illusion through rapid sequential display of static images that minimally differ from each other is known as Animation. Gaming is the act of playing games on different available gaming devices like PC, mobile handsets, Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's PlayStation and many other.

Advanced technologies, rapid expansion and creativity are playing a major role in the massive growth of the Global Animation and Gaming markets. The animation and gaming market can be segmented into subcategories within e-Learning, web design, and animation entertainment including; movies, Visual Effects (VFX), TV & Broadcast, and Direct to DVD. Movies are further divided into 2D animation and 3D animation. Gaming takes PC games, mobile games, console games, and online games into consideration.

There is a huge demand for 3D animation across the globe including Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan, and ROW (Rest of the world) while the U.S. leads the market in animation with about 42% of the world’s share due to the animation big fishes like Disney Enterprises Inc, Adobe Systems Incorporated, and Sony Corporation.

Many hit movie blockbusters such as Planes, Turbo, Epic, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2, and Frozen were launched in 2013. This surely makes the power of animation evident.  An additional three landed in the top ten highest grossing films of 2013 - yes, live action and animated films - with The Croods at 9th place, Monsters University at 4th, and the mega-hit movie Despicable me 2 which slid in at #2 at the box office, falling just behind Iron Man 3.

source: Madagascar 

Also there is a new outlook for the gaming industry with the growing popularity of innovative online gaming such as massive multiplayer and role playing games. According to Newzoo’s 2013 Global Games Market Report, the $70 billion video game market is growing at over 6% a year. Contributing to this is the emerging indie sector with crowd sourced publishing. Crowd sourced games are developed with the input of fans and independent designers through platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and up-and-comer ManaCrowd.

source: Prince of Persia (hdwallpapers.in)

According to Marketsandmarkets, the global animation & gaming market is expected to grow from $122.20 billion in 2010 to $242.92 billion by 2016 at a CAGR of 12.94% from 2011 to 2016. North America leads the overall animation & gaming market in terms of absolute dollar value; followed by Europe due to availability of essential animation infrastructure and advancements in technology. Asia-Pacific & Japan have a smaller market in terms of revenue. However, with increasing penetration of mobile subscriber base and rising government initiatives; the market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 19.08 % from 2011 to 2016.

source: Marketsandmarkets

(reference: 

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/16426000-global-animation-gaming-market-worth-24292-billion-by-2016)

Long term Evolution And Its Global Market

LTE (acronym for 'Long Term Evolution') is a wireless broadband technology which is basically designed  for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is commonly marketed as 4G LTE. 

LTE is significantly improved over its predecessor UMTS 3G technology which is based upon WCDMA, HSPA (HSDPA and HSUPA combined) and HSPA Evolution (HSPA+). LTE allows operators to achieve even higher peak throughputs than HSPA+ in higher spectrum bandwidth. Even though HSPA and its evolution are strongly positioned to be the dominant mobile data technology for the next decade, the 3GPP family of standards must evolve toward the future. HSPA+ will provide the stepping-stone to LTE for many operators.

LTE capabilities include:

• Increased spectral efficiency over Release 6 HSPA by two to four times
• Scalable bandwidth up to 20 MHz, covering 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, and 20 MHz in the study phase
• Reduced latency, up to 10 milliseconds (ms) round-trip times between user equipment and the base station, and to less than 100 ms transition times from inactive to active
• Operation in both TDD and FDD modes
• Downlink peak data rates up to 326 Mbps with 20 MHz bandwidth
• Uplink peak data rates up to 86.4 Mbps with 20 MHz bandwidth

Global Market of LTE:-

The global LTE market is expected to grow from $2.28 billion in 2010 to $262.05 billion in 2015. This represents a CAGR of 158.2% from 2010 to 2015. Saturation in the existing 3G networks, the quest for higher data rates and the need for spectral efficiency have been prominent factors, triggering the demand for global LTE deployments.

North America is the fastest growing market in terms of LTE infrastructure setup; whereas EMEA faces certain government-related issues with regards to spectrum auctions. Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Latin America are the fastest growing regions.

The LTE market has wide scope in terms of operability as it is capable of operating in both TDD and the FDD modes, thereby giving flexibility to the operators. With innovations such as network sharing and hybrid networks budding in the market of late, LTE players have immense opportunity which still remains untapped.

For further reference:-

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/16397881-global-lte-market-is-expected-to-reach-26205-billion-in-2015 

Smart Card And Its Global Market

Smart Card:

Smart card is a small electronic device about the size of a credit card that contains electronic memory, and possibly an embedded integrated circuit (IC).It contains an embedded microchip that can be loaded with data, used for telephone calling, electronic cash payments, and other applications, and then periodically refreshed for additional use. It is made of plastic, generally polyvinyl chloride, but sometimes polyethylene terephthalate based polyesters, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or polycarbonate. Systems that are enhanced with smart cards are in use today in various domains like healthcare, banking, entertainment, transportation and others.

How Smart Cards Work:-

A smart card contains more information as compared to a magnetic stripe card & it can be programmed for different applications. Some cards can contain programming and data to support multiple applications and some can be updated to add new applications after they are issued.  A smart card reader (a small device into which you insert the smart card) is needed to pull information from smart card or add data to it.

An industry standard interface between programming and PC hardware in a smart card has been defined by the PC/SC Working Group, representing Microsoft, IBM, Bull, Schlumberger, and other interested companies. Another standard is called OpenCard. There are two leading smart card operating systems: JavaCard and MULTOS.

Global Market:-

Globally, over a billion smart cards are in use already. Today, Europe is the region where they are frequently used.  MarketsandMarkets, a research firm, predicts that the global shipments of smart cards are expected to reach about 8.8 billion units by 2015 from 5.2 billion units in 2009, growing at a CAGR of 9.6% during 2010 – 2015. Another study forecasts a $26.5 billion market for recharging smart cards by 2005. Compaq and Hewlett-Packard are reportedly working on keyboards that include smart card slots that can be read like bank credit cards. 

Increasing awareness amongst the population about the benefits of smart cards in access and identity security and growing adoption in sectors such as telecommunications, healthcare, and banking have been the reason for the progressive growth of the smart card market. The increasing penetration of mobile phones has made telecommunications sector the biggest consumer of smart cards in the form of SIM around the globe. 

For reference, I used the smart card market report by a research firm called MarketsandMarkets, which I discovered to be very descriptive. The report covers the global smart card market by forecasting shipments, revenues, and analyzing trends in sub-markets such as smart card interface, components, and sector specific application. Here is the link if interested:-

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/smart-card-285.html

(image Source:- nite.ac.in)                          

(Image source: andreonicards)