Author: BWild

People are hooked on smartphones and a new report has shown that those monthly bills are adding up.

A recent report issued by Boston Consulting Group has shown that consumers love their mobile technology and those from developed countries (the United States, Germany, and South Korea) are currently paying an average of about $6,000 per year on them.

This represents the equivalent to 12 percent of the average annual income and includes devices and services.

The sales and use of mobile technology, specifically cell phones and smartphones, generated almost $3.3 trillion in global revenues, last year, said a Qualcomm commission report entitled “The Mobile Revolution: How Mobile Technologies Drive a Trillion-Dollar Impact” report. It also stated that the aggregate annual consumer surplus – that is, the benefit above and beyond what is paid directly for mobile services – is considerably higher, at a total of about $6.4 trillion.

Most of the people who were surveyed said they would rather give up dining out for a year than their mobile technology.

They also said that they would give up going on vacation for a year in order to be able to hang on to their mobile devices. The research included the participation of 7,500 consumers in the United States, Germany, Brazil, India, China, and South Korea.

In Korea and China, the majority of smartphone users said that they would prefer to give up their home broadband internet connection than go without their devices.

According to senior partner at The Boston Consulting Group, David Michael, who was also the report’s lead author, “The typical U.S. consumer reports that their mobile phone connection creates more than $5,800 in value for them per year, over and above what they pay. That surprised us.”

Michael also pointed out that it was interesting to observe the value that consumers applied to mobile services within emerging markets. Among Indian and Chinese consumers, over 60 percent claimed that their mobile device services gave them access to new opportunities in generating income.

The report indicated that from 2009 through 2013, the mobile technologies industry made capital expenditures and research and development investments of $18 trillion.

The service that is best known for the music that it provides is now expanding into other areas.

When most people think of Shazam, they call to mind an app that they use to identify – and listen to a song – when they don’t know who sings it, but that company is broadening its reach to wearable technology integration and augmented reality, among other things.

The features available through the app will also include a social component through recommendations.

The app will also have Spotify and Rdio integration, which will allow Shazam users to be able to scroll through a range of artists that are in some way related to the results of their search, so that they will be able to discover additional new content. At the same time, that new component of the app is only the start of the changes that Shazam has in store for 2015, as it heads outside of music and into things like wearable technology integration, and even into augmented reality.

The future of the company will not be exclusive to music, but will include wearable technology and other cutting edge tech.

The CEO of the company, Rich Riley, pointed out that the changes have already begun, but that they are only scratching the surface of what is in store. The app already prompts in movie theaters and TV commercials that behave like QR codes, when it alerts users to “Shazam this commercial to learn more!”.

Throughout 2015, Riley explained that the company will be continuing to work on a component that they call “visual Shazam”, which could provide a new feature that links the app to the physical retail experience.

This use of smartphones and tablets as a part of mobile commerce while in store is nothing new. It is commonplace for people to take out the devices to learn more about products through reviews and price checks. However, a new Shazam feature could potentially drive consumers to Shazam for savings opportunities such as free coupons, giving brick and mortar stores the opportunity to bring customers back inside instead of choosing online shops.

Augmented reality will also be integrated into Shazam results, such as providing a 360 degree tour of a print magazine ad to show the entire interior of a vehicle – as was recently the case with Jaguar. The app and service will also be optimized for wearable technology, this year, for people who would rather use smartwatches to identify a song than use their smartphones.