Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Driven by rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, international consumers of digital media — video, video games, music and books — are moving away from traditional household ownership models to individual rental models, increasing the pressure on content publishers to increase investment and innovation.

This is according to “The Age of Curation: From Abundance to Discovery,” an eight-country, 6,000 consumer survey and report to be presented on November 21 at the 2013 Forum D’Avignon, by Bain & Company (www.bain.com), aglobal business consulting firm. Key findings include:

With nearly 170 million Americans using smartphones today, mobile devices are now synonymous with everyday activities such as email, web browsing and communication via texts or social media. A number of Americans are actually reaching for their phones in some of the most unexpected places and using them for more than just staying in touch while on-the-go, according to results of a new nationwide survey released by LG Electronics.

With the digital world upon us, digitalization will significantly change the technology market through the Internet of Things, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). While IT spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) will show an average annual growth rate of 2.2 percent through 2017, the Internet of Things (things, people, places and systems) will create new markets and a new economy, according to the research group.

Game Insight (www.game-insight.com), a publisher/developer of mobile/social games, and J’son & Partners has presented new market research on the Russian mobile market, comparing growth in mobile applications and devices in Russia against global figures.

Over the first half of 2013 about US$2.5 billion worth of mobile broadband modems and routers for computing and consumer electronics connectivity have shipped. For the full year, market intelligence firm ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) forecasts 92.1 million of these 3G and 4G modems and routers will be shipped worldwide to mobile network operators, retailers, and device manufacturers.