Rebecca Day

International Data Corp. boosted 2013 projections for worldwide tablet sales to 190.9 million units from 172.4 million based on a surge in sales of smaller, lower-priced models in 2012. IDC forecasts tablet shipments will increase by an average 11 percent 2013-2016, reaching 350 million shipments by year-end 2017. Half of shipments in Q4 2012 were tablets with eight-inch or smaller screens, and smaller tablets are expected to continue their sales growth trend in 2013 and beyond, said Jitesh Ubrani, IDC research analyst. Vendors are moving to the smaller sizes to address consumer demand for tablets that meet their “daily consumption habits,” Ubrani said. Android-based tablets grew their share of the market “notably” in 2012, IDC said, and the trend is set to continue in 2013, when the Android tablets are projected to peak at 48.8 percent share later this year, up from a previous forecast of 41.5 percent. Apple iOS tablet market share, meanwhile, is projected to slip from 51 percent in 2012 to 46 percent this year, IDC said. Long term, both iOS and Android will cede some market share to Windows-based tablets, with Windows 8 tablet sales predicted to grow from 1 percent of the market last year to 7.4 percent in 2017, IDC said. While Windows 8 tablets are expected to increase share, Windows RT-based tablet growth is expected to stall below 3 percent for the forecast period, IDC said. “Microsoft’s decision to push two different tablet operating systems … has yielded poor results in the market so far,” said Tom Mainelli, research director of tablets, at IDC. Consumers “aren’t buying Windows RT’s value proposition,” Mainelli said, saying Microsoft and its partners would be “better served” long term by focusing efforts on improving Windows 8. Forecasts for e-reader sales, meanwhile, have been revised downward by an average of 14 percent yearly from 2013-2016 on a projected rise in low-cost tablet sales, IDC said. “The growth of low-cost tablets is clearly damaging the prospects of the single-use e-reader,” Mainelli said, saying e-reader shipments “peaked in 2011 at 26.4 million units.” After declining to 18.2 million units in 2012, the category is expected to grow “only modestly in 2013 and 2014, before it begins a gradual and permanent decline beginning in 2015,” he said.

DTS “significantly enhanced our network-connected footprint,” saidCEO Jon Kirchner on the company’s Q4 earnings call Monday. Through acquisitions such as Phorus, and its headphone technology partnership with Qualcomm, DTS will have an important role to play in the cloud-based delivery of high-quality entertainment, Kirchner said.

Electronic components supplier Cree has broken what it calls the “magic $10 retail price point” with an LED bulb that began shipping through www.homedepot.com last week and is due in all of Home Depot’s 1,976 stores by March 21. Cree is launching three versions -- a 6-watt “warm white” bulb ($9.97), that replaces 40-watt incandescent bulbs, a 9.5-watt warm white bulb ($12.97) to replace 60-watt incandescents and a daylight 9-watt bulb ($13.97) with the output of a 60-watt incandescent, the company said.

The joint app announced at CES by Time Warner Cable and Roku, which launched last week with the debut of the Roku 3 streaming player and software upgrade, is a “glimpse into the future” of cable TV, BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield wrote in a blog post Friday. The pact between Time Warner and Roku marks the first time TWC TV is available for streaming on a consumer device connected to a TV (CED Jan 17 p4). The authenticated app replicates Time Warner’s existing app -- available on iOS devices and TWCTV.com services via PC -- which streams live linear TV channels and soon, VOD programming.

Electronic Arts, along with the Human Rights Campaign, sponsored the LGBT (lesbian gay bisexual transgender) Full Spectrum conference at the Ford Foundation in New York Thursday to focus a spotlight on recent debates surrounding the inclusion of same-gender romance in EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic game and how LGBT players are treated within online games overall.

Margin pressures on set-top boxes, and the ability of cable customers to choose their own cable decoder boxes, could drive a new model for set-top distribution in homes, said Keith Kocho, Cisco director-strategy and business development, on a panel at Media Summit New York Tuesday. Within 12 months, Kocho said, the industry will see “something that resembles the handset subsidy model you see in mobility happen in the living room."

"Black Friday has changed forever as far as stores are concerned,” said Demos Parneros, president of U.S. stores at Staples, on the company’s Q4 earnings call Wednesday. No longer one day, Black Friday has turned into “Black Friday Week” and has consumed the weekends before and after Thanksgiving weekend, he said. The results from the expanded Black Friday period at Staples last November were “better online, worse for stores,” Parneros said.

Holiday sales at Walmart were boosted by the retailer’s in-store/online purchase synergy, CEO Bill Simon said Tuesday during a webcast from the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference. Customers were able to fulfill orders made at Walmart.com through its 4,000 U.S. stores “all the way up to Christmas Eve,” compared with most e-commerce players who are “out of business because of the shipping deadlines,” Simon said. Walmart can “fulfill orders through our business on the ground either through fulfillment from store or a pickup in-store opportunity that others might not be able to do,” he said.

Verizon Wireless is testing Lowe’s Iris home control system in 118 stores along the East Coast and in Georgia and Alabama, a spokesman told us Monday. The stores are offering the Iris safety and security package and the comfort and control package, and the products “are in there now and will be in there,” the spokesman said in response to how long the carrier will commit to carrying the home management gear. “The question is will we expand?” he said. If Verizon Wireless stores do well with the initial run of products, it will expand to stores in other parts of the country and to other products that come out in the Iris line, he said, without quantifying what minimum sales requirements would be for expansion.

SAN ANTONIO - Several decades into the market for home control systems, industry players are still struggling with how to reach consumers and make money at it, said panelists at Parks Associates’ Smart Energy Summit. Educating consumers about benefits of home control, monetizing the service and simplifying the technology for a mainstream consumer all remain barriers to success of the category, they said.