Google has over 98% of the mobile search market

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"Google has been dominating the search engine market for years, but at least there are some competitors that have a few percent each.
But if you look at mobile search, i.e. search on mobile devices, which is more or less the smartphone market, Google is utterly crushing the competition to a level that it’s never managed in the regular search market.
Just look at this very telling chart, showing Google’s overall search and mobile search market shares in relation to those of Yahoo and Bing, its two closest rivals."
Source:  Data from Statcounter, reported by Pingdom, 29th July 2010

Some of Facebook's largest advertisers 'have increased their advertising spend ten-fold' in the past 12 months

"Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's sites chief operating officer, claims that some of its most prolific advertisers have increased their spending ten-fold in the past 12 months. In an interview with Bloomberg News, she said that major brands are increasingly seeing Facebook as a viable route to consumers.
"Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us. They started buying with us a year ago. Now, they're going big," she said. Facebook does not provide sales or profit figures, and Ms Sandberg declined to give the names of its largest advertisers in the interview. Big name advertisers are known to include Adidas and JP Morgan Chase.
However, recent reports suggested Facebook produced sales of $700m to $800m last year, and is on track for $1bn-plus bn this year. Last year it was thought to have made a small profit – in the tens of millions – although that is expected to grow this year, particularly in light of Ms Sandberg's comments.
In the interview, she disclosed that some advertisers have increased spending by more than 20-fold, while the company has managed to hold its advertising rates in line with the continued growth in the sites' users."
Source:  Interview with Facbook COO on Bloomberg News, reported by The Daily Telegraph, 4th August 2010

Spend on recorded music stabilised in the UK in 2009, after a 5 year downward trend

"Highlights of the Adding Up The UK Music Industry 2009 report include:
• The UK music industry was worth £3.9bn in 2009, up 4.7% on 2008.   Combined business-to-consumer revenues (live industry and recorded music sales) grew 4.8% to £2.9bn making up 75% of the total industry
• Retail spend on recorded music including CDs, downloads, music DVDs and streaming stabilised, helped by growth in licensed digital music services  and ending a five year overall downward trend
• International licensing revenue from music use overseas is becoming increasingly important with demand from the US, France, Germany, Japan and Holland as well as growth in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe
• Live music revenues have increased 9.4% to £1.5bn including direct ticket sales, secondary ticketing and ‘on the night’ spend, but have slowed from 2008’s outstanding growth of 13%
• Business-to-business revenues including royalty collections from organisations and businesses using music, direct licensing of music services and advertising and sponsorship totalled £967m up 4.4% on 2008
• Recorded music revenues in the UK are shown to be larger than the US when expressed per head of population"
Source:  Press release from the PRS to announce the Adding Up The UK Music Industry 2009 report, 4th August 2010

Amazon claims to have 70-80% of the US digital books market

"[Ian] Freed: [...] The American Association of Publishers has said that e-books have grown at about 200 percent year over year. Our sales are growing faster than that, so you can back into what that means in terms of segment share.
CNET: Well, Apple's saying it's got 20 percent market share and I've heard Barnes & Noble saying it's got 20 percent as well, so that would leave you guys with...
Freed: Honestly, something doesn't add up because we're pretty sure we're 70 to 80 percent of the market. So, something, somewhere isn't quite working right. I encourage you to do some more research. Obviously, from the beginning of Amazon we've been very metrics-focused and we don't typically throw out numbers we don't firmly believe in. Take that 70 to 80 percent number and add up all the others and something somewhere isn't going to add up."
Source:  Ian Freed of Amazon, interviewed by CNET, 2nd August 2010

The global smartphone market grew by 64% Y-o-Y in Q2 2010

"Nokia retained a substantial lead in the worldwide smart phone market in Q2 2010, achieving a 38% market share. The vendor shipped a record 23.8 million smart phones during the quarter, representing growth of 41% on a year ago, as it focused on delivering affordable smart phone offerings to the market, such as its popular 5230 touch-screen handset, based on the Symbian operating system (OS). But Nokia’s market dominance is not as unassailable as it once was, with its performance outpaced by growth in the smart phone market as a whole.
The smart phone market grew by 64% annually worldwide in Q2 2010. At the same time, shipments of RIM’s BlackBerry smart phones grew by 41%. Helped by the continued strong performances of devices such as the Curve 8520, it was once again the second placed vendor with an 18% market share, while also retaining its leadership position in North and Latin America. Despite a period of turbulent PR, initial shipments of the iPhone 4 were predictably strong and contributed to Apple’s 61% growth and worldwide market share of 13% for the quarter. But analysis of Canalys’ detailed, globally consistent data shows it is the collective growth of Android device shipments across a range of handset vendors’ portfolios that is most remarkable. With key products from HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG, among others, shipments of smart phones running the Google-backed Android operating system grew an impressive 886% in Q2 2010."
Source:  Canalys press release, 2nd August 2010

US & China Smartphone Vendor Share Q2 2010

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Source:  Canalys press release, 2nd August 2010

20 billion tweets have been posted

"There have now been more than 20 billion tweets since Twitter (Twitter)’s inception, according to tracking service GigaTweet.
The milestone comes just two months after the service hit 15 billion tweets and about five months since it reached 10 billion, indicating that activity levels on the microblogging service continue to accelerate.
While GigaTweet’s count is unofficial, Twitter indicated earlier this year that they’re seeing more than 50 million tweets per day. With the company recently breaking its own activity records during the World Cup (World Cup), we imagine the numbers are fairly accurate."
Source:  Data from Gigatweet, reported by Mashable, 31st July 2010