Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Worldwide carrier Wi-Fi deployments reached a total 4.9 million hotspots in 2012, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

“Despite the successful adoption of 3G and 4G mobile data services, the number of Wi-Fi Hotspots has continued to proliferate and are anticipated to surpass 6.3 million by the end of 2013,” comments industry analyst, Khin Sandi Lynn. The number includes Wi-Fi hotspots deployed by fixed-line and mobile carriers as well as third-party operators (e.g., Boingo, iPass, etc).

According to new data from the IDC research group (www.idc.com) global shipments of smart connected devices (PCs, tablets, and smartphones) are expected to surpass 1.7 billion units by 2014 with roughly one billion units delivered to emerging markets.

Over 6.6 billion mobile phones will be in use by the end of 2017, according to CCS Insight’s latest market forecast (www.ccsinsight.com). Two-thirds of them will be smartphones, up from less than 25% in 2012, according to the research group.

In the first three months of 2013, smartphone shipments exceeded those of non-smartphones for the first time ever. Sales of smartphones have been helped by new, cheaper devices, especially, but not only, in emerging markets. The mobile and media analyst firm expects 1.86 billion mobile phones to be shipped in 2013, of which 53% will be smartphones.

Just over 950 million mobile phone users worldwide are expected to use their handsets for mobile ticketing by 2018, up from 458 million this year, according to a new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com).

Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted a year-over-year decline of -0.9%, totaling just over US$5.9 billion, in the first quarter of 2013 (1Q13), according to the “International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker” (www.idc.com).

For the quarter, the total (internal plus external) disk storage systems market generated $7.7 billion in revenue, representing a decline of -3.2% from the prior year’s first quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reached 7.8 exabytes, growing 26.4% year over year.