Fortune

The report and accompanying pie chart released Wednesday by Parks Associates in advance of Mobile World Congress celebrates Apple’s 40% share of the U.S. smartphone market, but doesn’t say whether that’s up or down.

From the article "About Apple's 40% Share of the U.S. Smartphone Market" by Philip Elmer-DeWitt.

“Despite consumer shifts to streaming content, Blu-ray players continue to be owned and used by 44% of U.S. broadband households, or roughly 43.5 million households in 2015,” says Barbara Kraus, director of research at Parks Associates.

And the ongoing rise of 4K TV adoption could give Blu-ray a boost.

From the article "Blu-Ray Struggles in the Streaming Age" by Chris Morris.

But when all is said and done, it’s the less sexy items that most people will interact with on a day-to-day basis. Washing machines, refrigerators and other home appliances aren’t glamorous, but we all want them to do more than they already do – and several manufacturers are rushing to fill that demand.

A full 17% of U.S. broadband households intend to buy a smart kitchen appliance by end of 2016, according to Parks Associates. And this year’s CES has a wide assortment of ki ...read more

In June, Parks Associates released a study that found video-streaming services in the U.S. will see revenue jump from $9 billion in 2014 to $19 billion in 2019. The company reported that 57% of households with cable or satellite service have at least one streaming subscription. That number, Parks argues, will grow as time goes on.

From the article "Streaming bills are piling up: Do you care?" by Don Reisinger.

The fourth-generation Apple TV is the company’s first new model in nearly three years. In recent years Apple has faced stiff competition from Amazon AMZN 1.60% , Google GOOGL 1.64% , and Roku. Over the years, each competing TV service has added new games and content providers, along with voice search capabilities to their respective platforms. Moreover, each company has also released new streaming products within the past month, putting even more pressure on Apple to upgrade its ...read more

DT currently estimates that automation devices currently only form a small slice of the overall smart home market pie. According to MarketsandMarkets, the global home automation and control market was worth €5.18 billion in 2013 and is expected to reach €11.6 billion by 2020; and the market is projected to grow at an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.36% between 2015 and 2020.

“Central to success in appealing to consumers will be ease of set-up and interconn ...read more

As the holiday shopping season nears, it will be interesting to see how Apple AAPL -1.37% and Amazon’s media streaming devices do. Apple TV recently slipped from third to fourth place in the rankings of the most popular streaming media devices because of the growth of Amazon’s streaming devices, according to Parks Associates, whose data is based on last year’s U.S. sales. Google GOOG -2.27% also offers its own version of Amazon’s Fire TV stick, Chromecast.

From the article " ...read more

According to the NPD Consumers and Wearables survey, which was taken in December 2014, 54% of fitness tracker owners in the United States were women, while women made up only 29% of smartwatch owners. The survey was taken before the Apple Watch generated increased consumer interest in the smartwatches and, as a result, the NPD Group expects the growing market to eventually overtake fitness trackers. Although smartwatches are not fitness bands, they do perform many of the same fu ...read more