tablet

Amazon Delivers A Great Christmas For Its Kindle

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 06:17:30 +0000

Amazon Delivers A Great Christmas For Its Kindle

By: Mary Ellen Gordon, PhD

Anonymous Tue, 03/31/2015 - 23:17

2013-12-27

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App Insights

holiday

tablet

December 27, 2013 |

In less than a decade, connected devices have become an integral part of Christmas. They are commonly wished for and given as gifts, and Christmas is the biggest day of the year for new device activations. That tradition continued this Christmas, with device activations up by 63% compared to an average day in the first three weeks of December.

To identify what types of devices are most gifted, we compared new device activations on Christmas to the average for the first three weeks of December. This approach adjusts for the fact that the smartphone and tablet installed base is growing all the time, and therefore a large part of the difference between one Christmas and the next is a result of growth in the installed base rather than increased Christmas giving.

The chart below shows the smartphone and tablet manufacturers that experience the greatest increase in activations on Christmas compared to a typical December day. For the past three years, Amazon has been the brand of device that has experienced the largest bump in Christmas activations compared to its normal level of activations.

We believe price, business model, target market, and form factor all contribute to the big boost in Kindle activations at Christmas relative to other times of the year. Amazon sells Kindle tablets at cost, putting them within the Christmas budgets of more people than some other devices. The reason Amazon sells tablets at cost is that for them tablets are a channel for promoting physical goods and promoting and delivering digital content. That same retail business model means that Amazon is top of mind for many consumers during the holiday season, giving it lots of opportunity to promote its tablets as Christmas gifts. As we discussed prior to Christmas, Kindle’s new Mayday button makes it a particularly good gift for mobile newbies, and Amazon’s mass-market reach makes it available to those people. Last but not least, as we show subsequently, tablets in general, and WiFi tablets in particular, are the form factor that does best at Christmas, and many Kindles tick both of those boxes.

The combination of form factor and relatively low price probably also helps explain why Acer experiences a greater lift in Christmas activations than many other manufacturers, though the size of that bump is still only a fraction of what Amazon experiences.

In each of the past three years, Apple has experienced a larger Christmas lift than Samsung; however the gap between them narrowed this year compared to previous years. While the magnitude of the Christmas increase is smaller for these manufacturers than for Amazon, their baseline level of activations is so large that even a doubling of daily activations on Christmas (1.9x for Samsung and 2.3x for Apple this year, according to our data) represents a large number of devices.

Overall, while still significant, we can see that the size of the Christmas activation bump has declined over time for most manufacturers who ever had one. Even Amazon has dropped from forty-one times its baseline activations on Christmas 2011 to twenty-four on Christmas 2013. This is likely to be due to the increased overall penetration of smartphones and tablets, and is expected in a maturing industry. With more people having smartphones and tablets there are fewer new users to give them to, and giving to existing users is more challenging since existing users are already tied into carrier contract renewal cycles, app ecosystems, etc.

As shown below, in each of the past three years WiFi tablets have been the most gifted devices, with activations this year more than six times greater on Christmas Day than on an average day in the first three weeks of December. Smartphones are the least gifted connected device form factor with cellular-enabled tablets in between. We believe WiFi tablets are the preferred connected device gift since they work out of the box. Cellular-enabled tablets and smartphones require a data plan, creating an adult gift recipient version of children receiving toys with “batteries not included”. WiFi tablets also tend to be among the least expensive connected devices, making them more accessible gifts for more people.

Yesterday CNET predicted that Amazon will come out with a smartphone in 2014. We agree. Three of the four factors that help boost Kindle sales at Christmas – price, business model, and target market – also imply that it would make sense for Amazon to have a smartphone in its connected device portfolio. Whether it arrives by reindeer or drone, you may find one in your stocking next year.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs: Smartphone vs Tablet Usage Differences

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 23:25:50 +0000

The Truth About Cats and Dogs: Smartphone vs Tablet Usage Differences

By Peter Farago, VP Marketing

Anonymous Wed, 03/11/2015 - 16:25

2012-10-29

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App Insights

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While smartphones have reached critical mass, tablets are poised to do the same soon. As a form factor, tablets simultaneously take a step toward the living room and the workplace. For consumers, these devices are multimedia machines, offering a glimpse into how consumers might one day accept connected television. For workers, IT departments are already reacting to the “Bring Your Own Device” wave changing the modern workforce. According to Forrester, 12% of workers already use a tablet at work.

The stakes are high. According to its latest earnings call, more than one out of every three Apple smart devices sold during the last quarter was a tablet, 14 million iPads versus about 27 million iPhones. And with the announcement of the lower-priced iPad mini, more directly competing with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, Google’s Nexus 7 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2, we anticipate this ratio to increase more toward tablets during the holiday season.

This report focuses on how consumer demographics and behavior vary between smartphones and tablets. Taking a snapshot in September 2012 from Flurry Analytics, that totaled more than 6 billion application sessions across approximately 500 million smart devices, Flurry provides a comprehensive comparison between smartphones and tablets, spanning age, gender, time of day usage, category usage and engagement metrics. For age and gender comparisons, Flurry leverages a panel of more than 30 million consumers who have opted-in to share demographic data.

The chart above shows the distribution of age for smartphone versus tablet users across traditional age groupings (aka “age breaks”). The blue bars represent smartphone consumers and greens bars represent tablet consumers. Each group of same-colored bars totals 100%. On average, smartphone users are younger than tablet users, 30 versus 34 years of age. Nearly three quarters of smartphone users are 34 years of age or younger, while more than two thirds of tablet user are 25 years or older. Additionally, recent research from the OPA conducted by Frank N. Magid and Associates indicates that household incomes for tablet owners are becoming increasingly affluent, with 59% of household incomes for tablet owners surpassing $50,000 versus the U.S. average of 41% households with incomes over $50,000.

The pie charts above compare the gender split between smartphone and tablet users, with women shown in dark pink and men shown in blue. While smartphone usage trends slightly more male, tablet usage is nearly even. Traditionally, males adopt technology devices more than women. With an even gender split for tablets, this bucks the trend, indicating that tablets likely have more long-term mass-market appeal.

The chart above shows how consumers allocate their time using apps across a day, also called “dayparting.” Smartphone app usage is indicated with the blue line, and tablet app usage with the green line. Each line spans 24 hours of a day and totals 100% usage across the day. Studying the chart, tablets have a greater spike of usage during the prime-time television window, from 7 pm to 10 pm, whereas smartphone usage is more evenly distributed throughout the day. This would indicate that tablets are more often used alongside, or instead of television viewing than smartphones. In an earlier study, Flurry compared the combined usage of tablet and smartphone apps versus the Internet and television.

The chart above compares the time spent across app categories between smartphones and tablets. At a high level, consumers spend more time using tablets for media and entertainment, including Games (67%), Entertainment (9%) and News (2%) categories which account for nearly four-fifths of consumption on tablets. Smartphones claim a higher proportion of communication and task-oriented activities with Social Networking (24%), Utilities (17%), Health & Fitness (3%) and Lifestyle (3%) commanding nearly half of all usage on smartphones. Games are the most popular category on both form factors with 67% of time spent using games on tablets and 39% of time spent using games on smartphones. Further reinforcing that tablets are “media machines” is the fact that consumers spend 71% more of their time using games on tablets than they spend doing so on smartphones.

Finally, we compare engagement metrics between smartphones and tablets. On average, consumers use apps on smartphones more frequently but for shorter periods of time. With consumers using tablets more for media consumption, and during the evenings, this stands to reason. Conversely, consumers use their smartphones for shorter periods of time across more sessions over the course of a day to complete tasks like checking into social networks and using utility apps.

Studying smartphone versus tablet usage differences not only provides insight into how developers should consider form factor when designing app experiences, but also how digital distribution could disrupt the living room. As we imagine a world of connected TVs, tablet usage gives us the best current-day hint of that world to come. Tablet users are older, more female, and we can surmise, more affluent. Additionally, they use more during the evenings and for longer sessions. Finally they consume more media and entertainment experiences, with a significant proportion spent on games. In particular, this would indicate that as Apple and Google enter the living room with connected TV initiatives, game consoles made by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would experience the greatest competition. The distribution of content into the living room may also significantly change for network and cable television content providers. In summary, the impact of smart devices on both work and play are profound. With a bevy of significant companies vying for tablet hegemony, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Samsung, developers and consumers should expect nothing short of tremendous innovation.

Please note that in previous studies, Flurry combined all smartphone and tablet usage to generate total time spent by the average “smart device” user in a given day. Using the stats provided in this study, a clever reader could back into a comparison to that study. However, breaking out time spent per day using the metrics included in this study (by taking ‘number of sessions per week’ multiplied by ‘time per session’ then dividing by seven days to get to a daily figure) will not simply add up to the total ‘time spent per day’ provided in previous studies. This is because individual users of smartphones and tablets spread their total usage time across multiple devices. By separating out smartphone and tablet usage for this study, the overlap of users who have more than one device is not taken into account. In short, these two studies do not provide an apples-to-apples comparison.

Apple Tablet: The Second Stage Media Booster Rocket

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 19:19:03 +0000

Apple Tablet: The Second Stage Media Booster Rocket

By Peter Farago, VP Marketing

Anonymous Wed, 03/11/2015 - 12:19

2010-01-24

Insights from Tracking 200 Apps Across 50 Apple Tablets in Testing

Using Flurry Analytics, the company identified approximately 50 devices that match the characteristics of Apple’s rumored tablet device. Because Flurry could reliably “place” these devices geographically on Apple’s Cupertino campus, we have a fair level of confidence that we are observing a group of pre-release tablets in testing. Testing of this device increased dramatically in January, with observed signs of life as early as October of last year. Apple appears to be going through its cycle of testing and polish, which is expected from any hardware or software company as it nears launch.

Apple is expected to announce the yet-to-be named hardware on Wednesday, January 27 in San Francisco. There has been broad speculation about the functionality of the tablet, and what kinds of content and media partners the new device will feature. Additionally, there has been speculation about the most likely use cases for this kind of device, as well as which operating system the device will support. The choice of operating systems is particularly important for application developers because if the tablet runs on the same or upgraded operating system as the iPhone, then current applications running on the iPhone will also run on the tablet.

On these devices, Flurry observed approximately 200 different applications in use by testers. Studying category trends provides insight into the kind of user Apple is targeting and how it expects the device to be used. Below is a chart that shows the number of applications in use by category across test devices.

For Play not Work

Historically, tablet devices have been considered substitutes for anything where workers use clipboards, note pads or day runners. In more industrial settings, they could be used for inventory management, taking purchase orders or data entry. However, there was a surprising dearth of applications that support these use cases. Instead, the largest category was games. With a larger screen, more memory, multi-touch and multi-tasking expected, games will play better than ever on Apple handheld devices.

A Media Machine

The tablet device clearly targets consumers. The mix of applications observed comprises mainly of media and entertainment consumption as opposed to enterprise, productivity and computing. Specifically, popular tested apps include news, games, entertainment and lifestyle. In particular, there was a strong trend toward news, books and other kinds of daily media consumption, including streaming music and radio. In fact, the most widely downloaded of any single specific application was a new app. In its October Pulse report, Flurry studied iPhone as an e-reader and the threat this poses to Amazon Kindle. With rumors of large newspaper and book publisher deals, combined with its reading-friendly form factor, we speculate that the new Apple tablet will focus heavily on daily media consumption. Finally, across all applications detected, there was a strong theme of sharing and/or social interaction including social games, social networking, photo sharing and utilities like file transfer applications.

Not the Battle for Your Living Room

The device is positioned to appeal to the users who are out-and-about rather than compete directly against the TV, stereo and game console in the living room. With supply chain reports from Asia that light-weight 10.1" LCD and OLED screen components are in short supply due to large purchases presumably by Apple, we can surmise that the device will be thin and light, designed for portability. Further supporting this notion is the pattern of apps we detect for restaurant, movie show times and other apps that help users find points of interest around them, including travel guide applications.

A Rocket Booster for Developers

A noteworthy observation is that the Apple hardware we detected was running on OS 3.2, which has not yet been released. Currently the iPhone and iPod Touch are running on OS 3.1.2. Historically, Apple releases OS upgrades just before releasing new hardware. With significant expected changes (e.g., multi-touch, multi-tasking) for the tablet device operating system, there was concern among application developers that the tablet would not support existing iPhone applications. However, from the testing we observed, it appears that Apple wants to leverage the 130,000+ applications already available in the App Store on day one for the new device. For the developer, this is good news. Senior research analyst with Piper Jaffray, Gene Munster, is forecasting 2010 sales of iPhone and iPod Touch devices at 36 million, an increase over his estimate of 25.7 million for 2009. With tablet shipments for 2010 perhaps reaching 10M, according to AVI Securities, we see this as a major boost to application developers.