Apple Set for a Strong Holiday, But Can’t Rest on Laurels

Apple may be gearing up for a big holiday sales quarter, but in the recent quarter, performance has been short of market projections. Apple is also losing ground, albeit slowly, to some of its competitors. In a recent report by researcher Strategy Analytics, Android tablets now account for 41% of the tablet market worldwide. Although Apple’s iPads may still have the lead in the market with a 57% market share, Android-based devices are catching up.

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Amazon Striving for Ever-Faster Delivery of Kindle and Other Goods

According to a recently released report on Global Online Retail, excluding travel, the global online retail sector reported saw revenues grow at an annual rate of 15.4% to $530.2 billion from 2007 through 2011. Growth in retail sales were driven by sales of electronics, which grew to $119.2 billion and amounted to 23% of the retail sector’s revenues. The researcher expects the online retail sector to be worth $1,096 billion by 2016, reporting an annualized growth of 15.6% over 2011-2016.

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Netflix

According to the IHS Screen Digest, during the current year, the number of movies and TV shows streamed and downloaded legally in the U.S. will exceed the number of DVDs and Blu-Ray disc sold this year. Digital streaming will account for 3.4 billion transactions in 2012, reporting a growth of 135% over the year. Analyst expect that 2.4 billion DVD and Blu-ray discs will be sold this year.

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eBay Turns a Corner with Mobile Offerings

Analysts believe that mobile commerce will report rapid growth in the coming years and will account for 24% of the total e-commerce market by 2017. Although mobile commerce is dominated by travel, retail is also picking up. According to a Forrester Research, mobile retail will account for more than $25 billion in spending by 2017. Online retailers are already preparing to establish a stronger position within this segment.

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Better Monetization Eases Market Concerns Over Facebook

Facebook may have recorded the largest Internet player IPO ever. But since going public, the company’s market value has slipped considerably. Facebook has lost more than $40 billion in market value since the IPO as analysts have been worried about its ability to keep up monetization, especially on the mobile front. But the recent quarterly results managed to quell a few market concerns.

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Google Aiming to Be a Major Player in the Still-Developing Tablet Market

Analysts estimate that the Internet giant Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), accounts for more than 66% of the search engine market share. But the growing importance of mobile devices is hurting Google’s search revenues. Not only do mobiles offer a smaller screen for displaying ads, but the click-through rate on mobile devices is also less. Ads generated on smartphones cost about 40% less than those on computers and about 25% less than on those generated on tablets. Delivering the same monetization rates on mobile devices is proving to be difficult, even for leaders like Google. No wonder Google is looking beyond search.

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Microsoft Sees Revenue Declines But Gears Up for Windows 8

According to research by IHS, PC sales will fall 1.2% to 348.7 million units this year. This is first time since 2001 that PC sales are projected to decline over the year. This decline attributed to poor economic conditions and the increased adoption of mobile devices like the iPad.

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RIM Looks Grim

According to market research, in August of this year BlackBerry manufacturer RIM’s market share of the U.S. smartphone market fell from 11.4% a year ago to 8.3%. RIM may have managed to retain the third position in the market and is far ahead of Microsoft’s 3.6% market share. But it still has a big gap to overcome if it plans to contend with the second largest player in the market. Google’s Android phones commanded 52.6% of the U.S. smartphone market, and Apple saw its share grow from 31.9% to 34.3% in August. RIM may be counting on the BlackBerry 10 to pull it out of the rut. However, given the current gap in market share, that would be quite a challenge.

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The Market Likes Workday

Last week, SaaS-based enterprise services provider Workday (NYSE:WDAY) finally went public. According to Fortune/CNN Money, its IPO was among “the largest venture-backed IPO since Facebook.” It sold 22.8 million shares at $28 each, raising $637 million through the IPO.

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A Peek Into Newly Public Qualys

A Gartner report, Market Trends: Cloud-Based Security Services Market, Worldwide, 2012, estimates that the cloud-based security market will be worth $4.2 billion by 2016. Researcher IDC is more optimistic: One of its reports on cloud security–based solutions estimates a compounded growth rate of 16% over the period 2011 to 2015, projecting that the market will grow from $5.1 billion in 2011 to $9.3 billion in 2015.

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