Parks Points

The recent presidential election served as a motivation for the media to focus on differences between urban and rural residents. With use of consumer technology, urban and rural residents behave differently. A great example is app use; a higher proportion of urban dwellers use social, location, and mobility apps than people living in a suburban or rural region.

Demographic factors are often connected, not isolated. When the urban-suburban-rural divide is discussed, it’s important to ...read more

Each year, Security Sales & Integration and Parks Associates partner to complete The Residential Market Report, a survey of electronic security dealers and installing security contractors.

Now in its fourth edition, the survey has multiple purposes. First, it provides current business metrics for security dealers. Because security dealers have participated in the survey for several years, trending is also available. By comparing multiple years, we can provide insight into changing ...read more

Insurance is a data-driven industry. Actuarial tables calculate the probability of death, thereby enabling insurers to quantify and create products to insure against that risk. The Internet of Things and the data streaming from devices in the home, the car, or worn on the body represent an opportunity for the insurance industry to quantify risk with greater precision than traditional methods.

Using IoT to Define Risk

Insurers are racing to gain access to data in order to quantify ...read more

Television maintained its status as broadcast and pay TV for decades. However, the Internet and emergence of streaming video services has greatly impacted the content industry’s windowing strategies.

Digital distribution creates an abundance of monetization opportunities, in contrast to previous television models which relied on advertising revenue, home video sales, and subscription revenue from pay-TV service operators. Important strategic trends in digital television content ...read more

When consumers think about energy, oftentimes they are thinking about the pain of parting ways with money for their monthly utility bills. When consumers want to spend less money on energy, it is pretty clear that they need to use less energy, and 82% of consumers engaged in some energy-saving action in 2016.

“Mindful Actions” are some of the easiest ways that consumers can save energy and money. This is why these actions typically get the highest rates of participation. For ...read more

The IoT space is expanding to provide more targeted service offerings with vertical-specific capabilities, such as pre-defined reference applications, data algorithms, mobile apps, and business intelligence dashboards. Cloud-connected devices function more like software than hardware, creating changes in product development models.

Smart home cloud platforms are a growing segment consisting of smart home control and automation system platforms as well as smart home device ...read more

At CES 2017, one of the hottest device categories was intelligent personal assistants. A key function of intelligent personal assistant devices is streaming music and audio, as 27% of those using personal assistant devices are using it at least weekly for streaming music or audio. With Amazon Echo expected to grow in 2017, this will only enhance Amazon’s strong position in the streaming music market.

In 2017, diversification in use of personal assistant software will become more ...read more

Broadband services remain a key driving force in global productivity and communication. Businesses, governments, and individuals continue to rely upon the quality and dependability of high-speed data and broadband services in order to inform, educate, interact, and entertain.

On a worldwide basis, household adoption of fixed-line broadband services continues to increase. At the end of 2015, Parks Associates estimates that 739 million global households subscribed to a residential ...read more

IoT cloud platforms offer device makers and companies the opportunity to greatly expand the value of products and services. These devices are reshaping the value chain by altering product design and development, manufacturing, marketing, supply chain management, and service after the sale. They also generate new support activities, such as product data analytics and security.

While connectivity and cloud support require additional product costs for device makers, business value is ...read more

ARPU is more than just a leading KPI for the pay-TV industry; it is its lifeblood, funding innovation, infrastructure, operation, and the creation of content. Operators have been feeling the pinch between rising licensing fees for channels and the amount that consumers will ultimately pay for a pay-TV service. In an environment of online pay-TV services and skinny bundles, many operators are looking to premium pay-TV features as a way to continue to gain improvements in ARPU.

Almost ...read more