Tag archive: npd group

According to new research from the NPD Group, approximately seventy-three percent of small to medium businesses with less than 1,000 employees are planning on purchasing tablets over the next twelve months. This constitutes a five percent increase in businesses when the same question was asked during the second quarter of 2011. According to the research, the average investment in tablets will be more than $21,000 for small businesses over 2012… Read More

Based off a year-long study conducted by The NPD Group’s Connected Intelligence, the percentage of tablet owners that utilize Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet has increased over 2011. During April 2011, 60 percent of tablet owners stated that they only use Wi-Fi to go online, but only five percent had plans to invest in a mobile 3G broadband plan within the following six months. By October 2011, Wi-Fi only users had grown to 65 percent while… Read More

Remember when smartphones cost too much for the average consumer to dream about buying, much less maintaining? The devices are currently becoming the norm in the U.S. according to a report released by the NPD group. Smartphone handsets sales are climbing as the average price has dropped below $200. On Monday, the well-known market research company pointed out that, within a year, smartphone sales had taken 59 percent of all U.S. handset sales.… Read More

Computer shoppers, we have bad news: PCs cost 6 percent more than they did in 2009. Worse, prices may continue to rise. According to a report by NPD, the average retail price of a PC in the United States was $615, up from $580 in 2009, though 2009 represented a record low for prices. Customers may not be happy, but the rise is a sigh of relief for PC makers. Until this year, intense competition has driven consumers to purchase cheaper and… Read More

As news of a 15-percent decline in software sales for the month of June begins to sink in, analysts are looking for ways to buoy the sagging video game industry. One analyst, Michael Pachter for Wedbush Morgan Securities, is suggesting that part of the cause for the industry’s four consecutive months of decline might be because of the rise of online gaming. And his solution is to change online gaming to a subscription-based model. “We… Read More

The June sales figures for the video game industry have been released by the NPD Group, and for the second straight month the sales are down- this time by as much as 6-percent from the same time last year. There is a bright spot though- hardware sales have risen 5-percent, pushed primarily by the release of the new Xbox 360. Accessories are also up 6-percent, driven by the Xbox Live 1600 point card, the top selling accessory of June, for the… Read More

Almost a year and a half ago, Apple's iTunes store took over the top spot in U.S. music retailing from Wal-mart, and the event was hailed as a bit of a milestone in the development of the digital music business. But iTunes' growth hasn't really stopped there: according to new sales figures from the NPD Group, Apple's iTunes store now accounts for 25 percent of the U.S. music market. And while the audio CD remains the… Read More

New data released today by the NPD Group found that during its product launch, Microsoft's Zune handheld media player debut at the number two sport among portable media players, based on sales. According to the stats, the Zune grabbed 9 percent of sales for the week ending November 18; to that point, the Zune would have been on the market four days: it's official launch was November 14, 2006. A 9 percent sales share still puts… Read More

According to the NPD Group, a long-standing consumer research firm, the most important features consumers are looking for in next-generation video game consoles—like the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii—is great game content, followed by backward compatibility with favorite games. “Price is definitely a factor, but not as much as is content,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in a release. “I've long been a… Read More

The NPD Group says that retail sales for video game hardware, titles, and accessories in the United States topped $10.5 billion dollars during 2005, a record year despite weak sales of console systems. The figures represent a six percent increase over the $9.9 billion in sales racked up in 2004, and a $200 increase over the previous record year, 2002. The portable gaming market led the way, selling more than $1 billion in software alone and… Read More

The report, the first in a series of annual studies to measure ownership and attitudes underlying the growth of the mobile phone market, is intended to aid manufacturers, marketers and sellers of cellular phones in their planning and marketing to meet the needs of consumers. According to the report, music, games, photos, e-mail and Internet have all found their way onto cell phones, and as more consumers look for ways to integrate… Read More

August sales showed some sequential price declines with prices down 2 percent from July, the sharpest decline since May. Compared to the same period last year, August 2004 prices were down 16 percent. The overall price level fell below $12,000 for the first time, with the total price for the Price Watch basket of goods hitting $11,979. “The high sequential price decline shows that August is an important selling month with deals and… Read More

The growing trend of home networking–and the reasons why users are assembling such networks–puts PC makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard in the catbird's seat, according to a survey releasedMonday by the NPD Group. But as home networking expands from handling basic PC-centric chores such as file sharing, those vendors may not be the ones that end up with the bulk of the market, NPD'sstudy concluded. The survey, which… Read More

Its latest duo of high-speed burners underlines Sony's DVD drive ingenuity and market leadership. In fact, The NPD Group ranked Sony number one (based on dollar market share) for DVD burner sales in the combined U.S. retail and reseller markets during August 2003. Sony's award-winning Dual RW drives, which started shipping a year ago this month, were the PC industry's first combination drives to support the DVD+RW, DVD+R,… Read More

“By focusing on what matters most to the mainstream, we delivered the first consumer handheld to break the sub-$100 price point and reached a previously untapped market,” said Todd Bradley, president and chief executive officer, Palm Solutions Group. “And the mainstream responded — first-time handheld purchasers, including students, families and individuals, have embraced the Zire handheld as an affordable way to… Read More