Major Changes At Best Buy Now, Maybe More To Come For The CE Industry
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
By Stephen Baker, VP Industry Analysis, NPD and Paul Gagnon, Director, North American TV Research, NPD DisplaySearch
In a somewhat surprising bit of news today, the CEO of Best Buy, Brian Dunn, announced his resignation. Dunn was a 28-year veteran of the leading electronics retailer in the US and rose up through the ranks after starting as a salesperson.
Read more »
Tags: Best Buy, Brian Dunn
Consumer Technology | Stephen Baker, VP Industry Analysis, NPD and Paul Gagnon, Director, North American TV Research, NPD DisplaySearch | April 10, 2012 6:33 pm | Comments (0)
Running With The Tech Retailers
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
By Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence
It’s a far cry from Akihabara or even J&R’s downtown dominance of Park Row, but Manhattan’s 57th Street is a destination for a wide range of electronics, hosting the glass cube Apple Store, a Brookstone, and Hammacher Schlemmer. For decades, it was also home to a Sharper Image and, for a much shorter run, one of the few flagship Nokia stores.
Read more »
Tags: Fuelband, Nike, Niketown
Connected Intelligence | Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence | 10:48 am | Comments (0)
Comcast and Verizon Wireless: One Size Won’t Fit All
Friday, April 6th, 2012
By Jim Barthold, Sr. Analyst, NPD Connected Intelligence
With my broadband service from Comcast, TV service from DirecTV, telecom services by Verizon, and mobile operating systems from Android, I’m generally not a guest at the bundled services party even if my choices cost me a bit more.
Read more »
Tags: Comcast, Verizon
Connected Intelligence | Jim Barthold, Sr. Analyst, NPD Connected Intelligence | April 6, 2012 8:59 am | Comments (0)
End to End Without a Friend
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
By Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence
There have been rumors this week that Beats, the licensing company best-known for its Monster Cable-licensed headphones, will acquire the MOG subscription music service. No doubt feeling competitive pressure from Spotify’s successful swoop into the U.S. market, MOG has started to play the free music card, providing a limited number of free listens per month and offering consumers chances to earn more.
The upshot for Beats, now majority-owned by smartphone maker HTC, would be to create an end-to-end offering of tuned playback, combining the playback device (HTC smartphones), music itself (via MOG) and the headphones (licensed by Monster Cable). HTC has launched its own video service (HTC Watch) to which MOG might be a complement. The company has been focused on exploiting the opportunity to replace digital cameras with smartphones as the primary imaging device, an opportunity that has a parallel in the competition between portable music players and smartphones.
Premium placement on HTC smartphones might be enough to justify the deal. However, like all smartphone vendors, HTC must balance the need to launch its own services with carrier priorities. In addition, it’s unclear whether Beats’ other major licensees would be swayed by the new ownership to either preinstall MOG (in the case of HP) or offer some in-box promotion with a headphone purchase (in the case of Monster Cable).
Uncategorized | Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence | March 28, 2012 12:03 pm | Comments (0)
Nokia Gets Close to Solving the “Chicken-Egg” Problem
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
By Brad Akyuz, Director, NPD Connected Intelligence
Nokia has shown serious signs of comeback at MWC 2012 when it launched an array of new services complementing its big bet on the Windows Phone platform. The OEM’s new Lumia line of Windows-powered smartphones has been selling in major European markets as well as the US (the low-end Lumia 710 at T-Mobile USA), and today Nokia secured carrier commitment for the new Lumia 900, the first LTE-powered Windows smartphone. Nokia announced that the new Lumia 900 will be available beginning next week through AT&T with a subsidized (requiring a two-year service contract) price tag of $99.
AT&T’s commitment to carry the new Lumia 900 is a major milestone for Nokia as the OEM had been excluded from AT&T’s smartphone lineup for over two years. Nokia has bet its entire future on the Windows Phone platform, which has yet to become a major contender to take on the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms in the US market. One major drawback of the platform has been its limited app library, which just hit the 70K mark compared to 500K+ and 400K+ applications available on the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms, respectively. Windows (and Nokia) has been suffering from the classic Chicken-Egg dilemma: consumer adoption has been slow due partially to limited number of apps on the Windows Phone platform, while application developers has been prioritizing other platforms over Windows Phone due to low consumer adoption. The LTE-powered Nokia Lumia 900 boasts the potential to break this vicious cycle thanks to its low price tag of $99. The Lumia 900 is a premium built device with an impressive specifications list – the phone’s LTE-less version sells for about £450 in the UK, almost matching the unsubsidized price of the iPhone 4S (16 GB). US consumer, however, will be able to get their hands on the LTE-powered version for half the price of iPhone 4S. If marketed effectively, the Nokia Lumia 900 is destined to sell in volumes high enough that will intrigue the developer communities to take the Windows Phone Platform more seriously.
While AT&T’s $99 subsidized price tag on the Lumia 900 might sound like a blessing for Nokia in terms of penetration boost, it’s noteworthy to mention that the low-price debut hinders the vendor’s chances for charging premium in the long run. AT&T is one of the most aggressive players in the market when it comes to device pricing with over 50% of its smartphone selection priced under $100 compared to Verizon Wireless has less than 30% of its smartphones selling under $100 (according to NPD Connected Intelligence Mobile Device Availability Report). The LTE-powered Lumia 900’s built quality and spec list would have deserved a higher price tag; however, AT&T already has multiple LTE smartphones selling under $100, and Nokia needs to hit high volumes and it cannot be done with a high tag with Nokia’s current market positioning.
Uncategorized | Brad Akyuz, Director, NPD Connected Intelligence | 11:21 am | Comments (0)
Gaming Across The Pond
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
By Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games
As the distribution of games content is increasingly delivered in digital formats to consumers, the business of video games has grown increasingly global as digitally delivered content doesn’t feel the same geographic boundaries as boxed products traditionally have. As soon as we started delivering our estimates of game content sales outside of new physical retail sales in the U.S., a little over a year ago, industry stakeholders and observers expressed the desire to see the same kind of information, globally, using the same definitions to enable cross-geography comparisons. Last week, NPD issued its first coverage of these content delivery methods in the UK, France & Germany, along with the delivery of the U.S. spend in these areas. Truly, digging into the data has revealed fascinating nuances to gaming behavior and spending in each country.
Since we’ve been issuing the estimate in the U.S., the consumer spend on used games has been the second largest area of content spend outside of new physical retail sales. For the first time, in Q4 2011, the spend on mobile games has eclipsed that of used in the U.S. We didn’t find the same results in the three European countries. Full game digital downloads and digitally distributed add-on content captured the largest share of consumer spend on content outside of new physical retail sales in France and Germany, while in the U.K., used game sales was larger than the other monetization methods measured by the survey. When we dug into the mobile games piece further in the U.S., we still find that the majority of game apps downloaded are free downloads.
But is free free? Our newest study, Insights into the Freemium Games Market, reveals that among players who play free games, a good portion, but certainly not the majority, of them have later paid to extend or enhance their free game experience. But not all players are enamored by the extras that paying to play offers. In fact, the top reason cited for not choosing not to pay for free-to-play games is that they only use the game infrequently and paying to play would not be worth the money. So while we’ve seen a lot of growth in the spend on digitally delivered content and mobile games, it’s clear from the study that there are a lot of kinks to work out in the Freemium business model.
Entertainment, Video Games | Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games | 10:44 am | Comments (0)
“March Madness” Week One-Results Are In: ESPN Mobile Content (Web and App) Scores Biggest With Android Smartphone Users
Monday, March 26th, 2012
By Linda Barrabee, Research Director, NPD Connected Intelligence
While CBS Sports and Turner Sports have exclusive coverage of the 2012 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship tournament, televised across its four broadcast networks TBS, CBS, TNT, and truTV; ESPN properties are tops among Android smartphone users in mobile web and apps.
During Week 1 of the tournament, Android smartphone users, including March-Madness-crazed smartphone users, went to the top mobile website that they typically do – ESPN – for tournament- and other sports-related information needs, including the oh so important brackets to feed the immediate need to update NCAA-related basketball (office- or wherever-, whatever-) pools. Interestingly, according to NPD’s Connected Intelligence SmartMeter, which tracks consumer use of smartphone applications, websites, communications and content services, the NCAA’s mobile website, while a distant second (based on reach), was second. Just last month, it didn’t even show up in the top ten sports websites. To better position the daily data trends, it’s important to look at the tournament broadcast schedule for Week 1: Sunday evening EST – the Bracket Picks are announced; Monday – No games; Tuesday-Wednesday – First Round games; Thursday-Friday – Second Round games; and Saturday – Third Round games.
More general-purpose and popular sports apps, like ESPN Score Center, CBS Sports, and ScoreMobile, were among the top performers during the first week of the tournament, but we also saw some NCAA Championship tournament-specific apps, such as ESPN Bracket Bound and NCAA March Madness Live, rise to the top.
NCAA March Madness Live free version includes scores, bracket capabilities, and live audio streaming; while the premium upgrade ($3.99 one-time fee) includes live streaming video of the games. However, streaming video capabilities on Android are limited based on OS flavor. While Google Play (formerly Android Market), indicates app support for Android 2.2 and up, there have been reported app-support problems with devices in that OS mix – some of which may have contributed to the limited reach figures seen during this Week 1.