Even with all the recent consumer concern over personal data privacy, a new analysis released this month by KPMG reveals that 49 percent of surveyed mobile users would stay with their carrier even if it was working with the government to monitor mobile usage to combat terrorism. According to the 2016 KPMG Consumer Loss Barometer, in surveying 449 consumers, KPMG found that 49 percent would stay with their current mobile carrier if they found out that the carrier was working with the government.      

Connected Machines

As if the Internet of Things (IoT) wasn’t hot enough for businesses and carriers alike, several events this month turned the IoT spotlight up a little brighter. AT&T announced it will introduce a pilot program in 2017 that will introduce the latest LTE technology (LTE-M) providing low-power wide-area IoT connectivity to more end points, connecting a wide variety of IoT solutions such as smart utility meters, asset monitoring, vending machines, alarm systems, fleet, heavy equipment, mHealth and wearables. The carrier has enabled LTE-M technology on its first site in the San Francisco market to support the pilot of its LTE-M Low-Power Wide-Area network at the AT&T Labs in San Ramon. AT&T plans to make the technology widely available across its commercial network throughout 2017. 

In the meantime, Swiss wireless and positioning module provider u-blox announced it will be introducing a new module next quarter to enable more devices to connect more easily to the Internet of Things using Verizon's new Category M1 LTE network. The SARA-R404M module is based on Qualcomm Technologies' MDM9206 LTE modem and is anticipated to be available for the Q4 2016 launch of Verizon's LTE Cat M1 network, which is scheduled to achieve nationwide U.S. coverage by the end of Q1 2017.  

Despite all this machine talk, a new study carried out by market research and advisory firm PAC on behalf of Deutsche Telekom and its corporate customer subsidiary T-Systems, surveyed 150 IT and manufacturing and transportation decision-makers and provided some interesting insights -- only five percent of those surveyed stated they had made full use of the available IoT potential. The market is by no means saturated and companies in these industries indicated they want to ramp up deployment of solutions for predictive maintenance and the Internet of Things. 

Smart Talk

Even with Samsung taking a hard hit for its lithium battery meltdown and subsequent takedown of its much-heralded Galaxy Note 7, things weren’t looking nearly as bad for the smart device sector as you might think. According to a new report from International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide smartphone shipments are up one percent in the third quarter despite Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 recall. According to preliminary results from the IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 362.9 million smartphones worldwide in 3Q16. Despite the recall of the Galaxy Note 7, volumes were up 1.0% compared to 3Q15 when vendors shipped 359.3 million units. Sequentially, shipments grew 5.3% from 344.7 million in the second quarter of 2016. 

In fact, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Chinese smartphone shipments grew 15 percent annually to reach 121 million units in Q3 2016. Huawei maintained first position with 15 percent China smartphone marketshare, but rivals OPPO and Vivo are closing the gap in second and third place. 

comScore Inc. and IMS Internet Media Services reported this month that 9 out of 10 Latin Americans connect to the Internet with a smartphone and 81 percent of them prefer Android devices. A joint report on trends in digital consumption and mobile apps usage in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Chile was based on results from an online survey of smartphone and tablet users aged 15 or older and revealed that 9 out 10 people connected to internet in Latin America have a smartphone.