Correction: Statements from a blog post on FTC regulatory authority should have been attributed to the agency, not the blog’s author, Covington & Burling privacy lawyer Morgan Kennedy (see 1502240070).
All 2016 model-year Audi vehicles equipped with the “Audi connect” function -- about 19 models -- will come with AT&T 4G LTE or 3G coverage, AT&T and Audi of America announced Tuesday. All 2016 models with Audi connect will be delivered to customers with an AT&T SIM card providing connectivity to the carrier's wireless network, the companies said.
The 13 largest U.S. pay-TV providers lost about 125,000 net video subscribers in 2014, and annual net pay-TV losses in 2014 were 95,000 subscribers, comparable to 2013, said the Leichtman Research Group (LRG) in a news release Tuesday. In 2014, the top nine cable companies lost about 1.2 million video subscribers, the fewest since 2008, it said. In 2014, the top phone providers added 1.05 million video subscribers and satellite-TV providers added 20,000 video subscribers, it said. Comcast had the most video subscribers for cable, and DirecTV, the most subscribers for satellite TV, a spreadsheet in LRG's news release showed. Meanwhile, U.S. pay TV had modest year-over-year growth in Q4, Pivotal Research Group (PRG) said in a Tuesday report. Pay TV will also have growth in subscribers in 2015, PRG said. Pay-TV penetration in U.S. households declined 0.9 percent to 85.9 percent, it said. Broadband remains healthy and cable will continue to take net new broadband subscribers, PRG said. Wireline phone subscription losses dropped 50 percent year over year, PRG said. The cable industry faces the risk of reregulation, especially with reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service creating the "potential for regulation medium to long term," analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak said. If the government doesn't approve Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, it could create a "temporary downside in all the names," he said. Other risks for cable include aggressive product price increases, increased competition from Google Fiber, potential over-the-top video competition and wireless substitution for phone and data, and rising programming costs, he said. The satellite-TV industry faces the risks of increasing competition and programming expenses, Wlodarczak said. If cable makes higher speeds more widely available, like 500+ Mbps, there could be Internet-based alternatives for satellite TV, he said. AT&T and Verizon pushed their video products "at the expense of satellite," he said. Satellite-TV operators lack internal triple-play bundle services, but since they are partnered with major telcos, the coming of 4G might help, he said. DirecTV focuses on the same market that regional Bell operating company and cable companies do, and Dish Network's market is at risk in the current economy and from consumers switching to over-the-top (OTT) alternatives, Wlodarczak said. OTT and retransmission rights will become substitutes for multichannel TV, he said.
Mobile operators will continue to struggle as average revenue per user stays in continual decline, forecast a report from ABI Research Monday. It said the machine-to-machine (M2M), also known as the Internet of Things, market will grow to $174 billion in 2019, a 200 percent growth from 2014. ABI identified six potential future growth areas for mobile operators: digital content, M2M, mobile money, big data monetization, advertising and enterprise cloud solutions. The findings are part of ABI’s mobile deployments, capital expenditures and traffic market research.
Smartphones made up two-thirds of the global phone market in 2014, said research from Gartner released Tuesday. Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users grew nearly 30 percent in Q4 over the year-ago quarter to reach 368 million units, Gartner said. Apple was tops, selling 75 million units, stealing the top spot from Samsung (73 million), which had owned the market since 2011, it said. Samsung lost roughly 10 percentage points in market share in Q4 versus the year-ago quarter, continuing a downward trend since its peak in Q3 2013, said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst: "Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share.” Analyst Roberta Cozza cited Apple’s dominance at the premium end of the smartphone market and pressure from Chinese vendors offering “quality hardware at lower prices” at the lower end as challenges for Samsung. A “solid ecosystem of apps, content and services unique to Samsung devices” will be necessary for the Korean vendor to secure customer loyalty and provide long-term differentiation at the high end, she said. Lenovo’s share of the end-user market -- including Motorola and Lenovo devices following the companies’ transaction in October -- ranked third in Q4, reaching 24.3 million units, giving it 7 percent of the global smartphone market, followed by Huawei at 6 percent share and Xiaomi with 5 percent share. Xiaomi’s unit sales to end users nearly tripled to 18.5 million units in the quarter, while its market share more than doubled, Gartner said. Apple’s best-ever quarter -- Q4 2014 with 74.8 million smartphones sold -- was buoyed by “huge demand” in China and the U.S., where sales leaped by 56 percent and 88 percent, respectively, Gartner said. The larger screen sizes of the iPhone 6 models presented new users a “strong alternative to Android,” Gartner said. Huawei and Xiaomi, meanwhile, propped up their sales in the mid- and low-end smartphone markets at home and overseas, it said. "Chinese vendors are no longer followers," Cozza said. "They are producing higher quality devices with appealing new hardware features that can rival the more established players in the mobile phone market.” Dropping prices drove the migration of feature phone users to smartphones last year, Gartner said. The Android ecosystem benefited most from the transition, growing 2.2 percentage points for 2014 to 80.7 percent share, followed by iOS at 15.4 percent share. Windows Phone's performance was basically flat in Q4, selling 35 million units, but it recorded strong results in some markets in Europe -- and in the business segment, Gartner said. Windows Phone held 2.8 percent market share for the quarter, while BlackBerry came in under 1 percent at roughly 8 million units, it said.
Hewlett-Packard agreed to buy Aruba Networks in a deal worth about $2.7 billion, said an HP news release Monday. It said that puts HP in position to address market trends for next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards and the push for everything to be mobile-centric. HP said the deal is expected to be completed in the second half of its FY 2015, subject to Aruba stockholder approval, regulatory approvals in the U.S. and other countries, and other customary closing conditions.
Showtime Anytime is available to Dish Network customers who subscribe to Showtime, Dish said in a news release Tuesday. Dish customers can watch Showtime programming on-demand on streaming devices and TVs, it said. Showtime on-demand programming will be added to VOD content on broadband-connected Dish set-top-boxes, DishAnywhere.com and the Dish Anywhere app, it said.
Sonos' latest software update is designed to make operation “easier and faster,” the company said in a blog post Tuesday. The update "introduces some new things for your Sonos and fixes others that we did not get right with the release of the Sonos app last spring," the company said. Upgraded features include an update to room control. The menu for room control is available from any screen of the Sonos App so users can move their music around the home more easily. An improved design for the tablet app makes toggling between screens more intuitive and quicker through multiple taps, it said. A new drop-down feature makes it easier to group rooms with a few taps, and users can go instantly from Now Playing to browsing using a swipe feature, Sonos said. Also, the track progression bar is more prominently displayed on the Now Playing screen to make it easier to go back and hear music one wants to repeat, it said.
Pushing a “read everywhere” strategy, Barnes & Noble announced Tuesday a new Android app said to bring a “unified Nook experience” to Android smartphones and tablets. The Android 4.0 app combines features found on Nook tablets and e-readers with new content types “such as enhanced kids’ eBooks” to give Android users the experience available on dedicated Nook devices, said the company. Users who download the app and set up a Nook account will receive a $5 credit to get started, it said. The app includes a newly designed home screen and “easier navigation” between Nook features and settings, said the company. Customers can shop and discover e-books directly from the home screen with access to Nook Channels, which the company said “brings the experience of visiting a Barnes & Noble bookstore directly to a customer’s fingertips.” Apps were also recently updated for iOS and Windows 8.
Cable One is increasing upload and download speeds on its Premier and Ultra plans starting in April “as a free upgrade" to new and existing Internet customers, the company said in a news release Tuesday. “Speed increases will be available across 99 percent of Cable ONE’s footprint by fall 2015.” Customers on Cable One’s Premiere 60 Mbps plan will be upgraded to 75 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload speeds, while those on the Ultra 70 Mbps plan will be upgraded to 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload, Cable One said. The speed increases are the results of “nearly" $80 million spent on infrastructure upgrades in 2014 and a planned $40 million in 2015, it said.