Mobile and Portable

Over the past decade, a growing percentage of US are connected to the internet, but do not receive home internet service from a traditional home internet provider. The bulk of these consumers are “mobile-only”, connected via a smartphone or tablet. With the launch of 5G home internet, and new low-orbit satellite networks, the market is poised for further shifts.  Fiber, fixed wireless buildouts set the stage for a Gigabit world. Accelerated by the pandemic, consumer...

Apple has long carried itself as a staunch defender of user privacy. CEO Tim Cook has even asserted privacy is a “fundamental human right,” and Apple’s track record has supported this notion. For example, Apple resisted the FBI’s attempts to access iPhone networks for the sake of monitoring and catching suspected terrorists and mass shooters, realizing the dangerous precedent that could be set by allowing government entities to access individuals’ private messages without a...

Earlier in the year, the original iPhone celebrated its 14 th anniversary.  Steve Jobs, Apple’s then CEO, took the stage at Macworld and amazed the globe with a product that literally changed how we communicate, work, and enjoy video and music content.  One could also argue that the iPhone (and the smartphone category in general) ultimately enabled social media apps to ascend to the level of popularity they currently enjoy.  In short, it’s evolved into a device that...

As connectivity in the car continues to increase, new use cases will emerge including augmented reality dashboards, assisted or remote operator driving, fully autonomous vehicles, and new levels of in-car infotainment.  Parks Associates’ new  CONNECTIONS™ Community  is a virtual conference series and networking experience focused on the connected home and IoT industries. Join us for our upcoming virtual session,  Connected Cars: Extending Functions in...

We’ve all heard the expression before—smartphones have peaked. And it's true; Parks Associates consumer surveys find that smartphone adoption in the US reached its highest point in 2017, and has slowly declined ever since. Going hand in hand with smartphone decline is a second, more counterintuitive trend. Consumers are going back to basics—basic phones, that is. Between 2017 and 2019, the percentage of broadband households with mobile phone service but no smartphones rose...

  One of the most exciting topics at this year's Consumer Electronics Show was voice assistants. Amazon and Google are competing head-to-head in this space, with Samsung beginning to roll out Bixby to more devices. Amazon is well in the lead with well over 40M Echo sales to date according to Parks Associates' estimates, but Google's efforts in conversational AI and deep integration with search is helping to make Google Home a compelling value...

Blog submitted by Thomas Rockmann, VP Connected Home at Deutsche Telekom The connected car market is arguably one of the most far reaching and dynamic markets of our times. While technology moves incredibly rapidly across all sectors, increasingly connected cars promise to change firstly the way we travel, and as a result the cities and homes we will live in. The drive towards fully automated cars has begun on several fronts, from increasingly sophisticated guidance and...

Smart watch adoption is picking up in the United States. According to Parks Associates' most recent survey data, as of 2017 14% of U.S. broadband households own at least one smart watch. Consumer-reported purchase intention for smart watches has also more than doubled year-over-year, ahead of the holiday shopping season. 2017 is an important year for the U.S. smart watch market. Traditional fitness wearable brands Fitbit and Garmin have announced their first "true" smart...