We’ve been zeroing in on the importance for the music industry of growing smartphone sales in places like China, India and Latin America recently. Analyst firm Ovum has provided some more numbers to conjure with. It claims that 450m smartphones were sold in 2011, with 160m of them going to “emerging markets” (which includes around 106m in China alone). However, Ovum is predicting 1.7bn smartphone shipments in 2017, with nearly 57% of them – 969m – going to emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. Android is expected to be the key platform fuelling this growth. “This new wave of affordable smartphones will have a major impact on consumer choice in emerging markets,” says Ovum’s Shiv Putcha.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…