22% of all IT spending by Australian organisations now from lines of business outside IT

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Australian businesses will experience a new wave of disruption in 2015 as a combination of wearable technology, remote working, online services and business unit technology spending change traditional IT spending and strategies, according a new research from emerging technology analyst firm Telsyte.

More than half of all CIOs believe line of business IT spending will exceed central IT spending within 5 years.

Telsyte senior analyst Rodney Gedda says business units like operations, marketing and finance have always had a say in the type of IT they use, but in today’s climate of on-demand procurement it’s easier than ever work with – or by-pass – IT to get a service they need.

“Today’s operations and marketing managers rely on technology to deliver business outcomes and the CIO is no longer the source of all procurement decisions,” Gedda says.

The Telsyte Australian Digital Workplace Study 2015 covers trends in business ICT spending and strategy and how IT and business leaders are preparing for the impact of emerging technologies.

Australian IT departments are also having to deal with more business unit IT spending with 79 per cent of organisations having at least one line of business – including marketing, operations and finance – with its own IT budget.

“This is up 5 per cent from 2014 and shows a growing demand for IT services from areas of the business like marketing. Combine this with more accessible cloud-based applications and the CIO has another information management procurement channel to deal with,” Gedda says, adding the central IT function still controls on average greater than 70 per cent of the total spending value.

The appetite for investment in 2015 is strong with organisations looking to increase ICT budgets by an average of 5 per cent and more than half (57%) of CIOs expect in-house IT staff numbers to increase this year.

Areas organisations are looking to increase spending most in include cloud computing, mobility, software-as-service and cloud UC and telephony.

“While operational cost savings remains the top business priority for 2015, both revenue growth and business process improvement are a higher priority than they were in 2014,” Gedda says.

The proliferation of consumer technology, including wearable computers, will extend the reach of the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon and organisations will need to prepare for more unmanaged devices on their networks.

“Like smartphones before them, wearable computers like augmented reality headsets might have business applications and people will find ways to be productive with them at work.”

The Telsyte Australian Digital Workplace Study 2015 is a comprehensive 100-page study that covers the key trends and strategies CIOs are employing to manage information and deal with social and technological change.

For further information on the study or media inquiries contact:

Rodney Gedda
Senior Analyst
Tel: +612 9235 5891
Email: rgedda@telsyte.com.au

For sales and consulting inquiries contact:

Foad Fadaghi
Managing Director
Tel: +612 9235 5851
Email: ffadaghi@telsyte.com.au

About The Australian Digital Workplace Study 2015

The Australian Digital Workplace Study 2015 is derived from primary research of 424 Australian CIOs and other ICT decision makers in organisations with 20 to 20,000+ employees. The comprehensive study provides subscribers with strategic insights on:

• What are organisations spending ICT budgets on and how are they changing?
• Are organisations outsourcing more and what value do they get from outsourcing?
• Which line of business units are spending on IT and what are the key trends?
• What are the top ICT and business priorities and challenges?
• Business mobile and fixed line use and spending
• How are work practices changing, including the penetration of remote working and teleworking?
• How is activity-based working (ABW) changing the way we work?
• What are the key Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy and intentions?
• Is Bring You Own Apps (BYOA) the next BYOD?
• Is social media being used for business benefit?
• What is the future of the enterprise business desktop?

About Telsyte

Telsyte delivers strategic insights and advisory services to businesses that are producing, or are impacted by, disruptive technologies. Telsyte publishes studies into emerging consumer and business markets and provides custom research and advisory services. Telsyte is a wholly-owned independent business unit of UXC Limited. UXC is an ASX-listed Australian IT services company and the largest Australian-owned ICT consultancy firm with over 2,500 customer organisations in the private and public sectors across Australasia. www.telsyte.com.au

The material in this article is copyright protected and not intended to be altered, copied, distributed or used for any commercial/non commercial purpose, except for news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching or scholarship.

Australia’s smartwatch market to exceed $400M by 2018 as wearable computing takes hold alongside nearly 17M smartphones

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – With some 370,000 smartwatches sold in 2014, Australians are warming to wearable computing with the market poised to exceed $400 million by 2018, according to new research from emerging technology analyst firm Telsyte.

Watch jewellery is a mature market with around 40 per cent (more than 7 million) of Australians (age 16 and above) wearing a watch almost every day. Notwithstanding the challenges, smartwatches have the potential to disrupt the traditional market as people consider wearable devices an extension to their smartphone and apps they use for fitness and communications.

According to Telsyte’s Australian Smartphone & Wearable Devices Market Study 2015, the smartwatch market is expected to grow by at least 50 per cent in 2015 due to the arrival of an Apple Watch.

Samsung, an early entrant in to the smartwatch market is the current market leader.

Telsyte Managing Director Foad Fadaghi says smartwatches will become more appealing to consumers as new stylish and featured devices enter the market, with the 25 to 44 year-old age group representing the best sales opportunity in 2015.

“There is a lot of anticipation for the Apple smartwatch and our research indicates half of all smart fitness band users are looking to upgrade to a smartwatch, creating a potentially vibrant new product category” Fadaghi says.

Telsyte research showed that over 800,000 smart wristbands such as those made by Fitbit and Garmin were sold in 2014.

As with smartphones, consumers consider ease of use, pricing and battery life the most important attributes of smartwatches. Many current smartwatches have been criticised for their short battery life and limited unique usage scenarios.

Telsyte’s research found the top three applications people want from a smartwatch are to (1) check the time and date (2) use it as an alarm clock or a reminder alert, and (3) read messages, including e-mail.

 
Smartphone sales mature as hand-me-down devices shake up the mid-market

According to Telsyte research, there were 16.8 million smartphone users in Australia at the end of December 2014 with sales of just below 5 million units in the second half of 2014.

This was around 10 per cent less than Telsyte expected over H2, despite very strong iPhone 6 sales.

Telsyte Senior Analyst Alvin Lee says the iPhone gained market share in H2 2014, but the overall share trends are likley to change again as an Android-users upgrade cycle in expected to commence in early 2015.

However, Telsyte has recognised increased competition to Android device by older model iPhones, typically received through a “hand-me-down”.

“The durability of handsets and the hand-me-down phenomenon is impacting the market, along with a flood of second hand iPhones cutting into sales of mid-tier Android handsets in the second half of 2014,” Lee says.

Telsyte estimates 1.3 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units sold in Australia last year, with the iPhone 6 outselling the iPhone 6 Plus, at a ratio four to one. Despite this Telsyte believes the demand for phablets or larger form factor smartphones is growing and will represent around a quarter of smartphones in use by 2019.

For further information on the study or media inquiries contact:

Foad Fadaghi
Managing Director
Tel:   +612 9235 5851 
Email: ffadaghi@telsyte.com.au

About the Australian Smartphone & Wearable Devices Market Study 2015

The Telsyte Australian Smartphone Market Study 2014 is a comprehensive study which provides subscribers with:
• Smartphone market sizing, platform and vendor market shares and forecasts
• Smartwatch market sizing, platform and vendor market shares and forecasts
• Smart wristband/fitness band market sizing, platform and vendor market shares and forecasts
• End user trends across devices, services and mobile media
• Purchase intentions & acquisition channels

In preparing this study, Telsyte used:
• Financial reports released by manufacturers, mobile carriers, and channel partners.
• Interviews conducted with executives from vendors, retailers, mobile operators, and channel partners of all major market participants.
• An online survey of a representative sample of Australians 16+ years of age conducted with 1,009 respondents in January 2015.
• On-going monitoring of local and global market and vendor trends.

About Telsyte

Telsyte delivers strategic insights and advisory services to businesses that are producing, or are impacted by, disruptive technologies. Telsyte publishes studies into emerging consumer and business markets and provides custom research and advisory services. Telsyte is a wholly-owned independent business unit of UXC Limited. UXC is an ASX-listed Australian IT services company and the largest Australian-owned ICT consultancy firm with over 2,500 customer organisations in the private and public sectors across Australasia. www.telsyte.com.au

The material in this article is copyright protected and not intended to be altered, copied, distributed or used for any commercial/non commercial purpose, except for news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching or scholarship.

Australia’s cloud communications market to reach $650M by 2020 as businesses move to softphones, cloud and mobile apps

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – More Australian businesses are adopting modern communications options, including cloud services, transforming traditional voice calls into unified communications (UC), according to new research from emerging technology analyst firm Telsyte.

Most organisations (88%) have staff that use a softphone at least once a week and Skype is the most popular application, well ahead of softphone that vendors ship with their PABX systems. A further 40 per cent of organisations are evaluating docking solutions to enable mobile devices to act as a desk phone replacement while in the office.

There is also a shift in how enterprise communications services are being procured with Telsyte forecasting cloud communications – where the customer does not own or manage PABX equipment – will exceed 30 per cent penetration by 2020. This is being driven by more options from traditional telco and non-telco service providers and will represent a market value exceeding $650M.

The Australian Enterprise Communications Market Study 2015 examines the impact of emerging technologies on business communications and how organisations can prepare for future disruption.

Telsyte Senior Analyst Rodney Gedda says organisations need to find the best ways to integrate services for holistic enterprise communications that will increasingly involve mobile devices and wearables.

“Instant messaging, presence and e-mail integration are the most deployed UC applications, but Web collaboration and BYOD integration are becoming more important as organisations look to modernise their business and support next generation employees,” Gedda says.

Telsyte forecasts UC to grow strongly in 2015 as organisations look to refresh both legacy TDM and IP-based infrastructure.

“CIOs know UC can reduce costs, which is a key driver, however, UC is increasingly as a path to optimising IT and enhancing business flexibility. This indicates a marked change from communications being seen as a cost centre to more of a productivity platform.”

Less than 5 per cent of Australian enterprises are “mobile only” and don’t have fixed line infrastructure, however, these organisations can still take advantage of unified communications through fixed-mobile convergence and cloud services.

The Australian Enterprise Communications Market Study 2015 covers the key vendors and service providers in the communication and collaboration market including: AAPT, Alcatel-Lucent, Amcom, Apple, Avaya, BlackBerry, Cisco Systems, Google, LifeSize, Macquarie Telecom, Microsoft, MyNetFone, Mitel, NEC, Optus, Polycom, ShoreTel, Siemens, Telstra, TPG, UXC Connect, Vidyo and WebEx.

For further information on the study or media inquiries contact:

Rodney Gedda
Senior Analyst
Tel:  +612 9235 5891 
Email: rgedda@telsyte.com.au

For sales and consulting inquiries contact:

Foad Fadaghi
Managing Director
Tel: +612 9235 5851
Email: ffadaghi@telsyte.com.au

About The Australian Enterprise Communications Market Study 2015

The Australian Enterprise Communications Market Study 2015 is derived from primary research of 258 Australian ICT decision makers in organisations with 20 to 20,000+ employees. The comprehensive study provides subscribers with strategic insights around:

• How the enterprise communications market is growing
• Unified communications drivers and barriers
• The return on videoconferencing investments
• The growth of cloud communications

About Telsyte

Telsyte delivers strategic insights and advisory services to businesses that are producing, or are impacted by, disruptive technologies. Telsyte publishes studies into emerging consumer and business markets and provides custom research and advisory services. Telsyte is a wholly-owned independent business unit of UXC Limited. UXC is an ASX-listed Australian IT services company and the largest Australian-owned ICT consultancy firm with over 2,500 customer organisations in the private and public sectors across Australasia. www.telsyte.com.au

The material in this article is copyright protected and not intended to be altered, copied, distributed or used for any commercial/non commercial purpose, except for news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching or scholarship.

Apple’s iPhone 6 in demand, but cost might make it a luxury

Today’s big news in technology is the much-anticipated announcement of the next-generation iPhone, the iPhone 6. With a bigger screen and more connectivity, including NFC, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are set to be very popular when available on September 19, however, Australians intending to buy an iPhone might delay their purchase due to cost.

High demand could mean strong sales

Telsyte forecasts around 1.5 million iPhone units (all models) could be sold by the end of the year in Australia, or around a 100,000 units per week on average over the peak holiday season, depending on stock availability and carrier contracts and offers.

The iPhone 6 should help grow the Apple user base. Telsyte surveys have shown a third of those intending to buy an iPhone in H2 2014, are currently not using an iPhone (i.e. using a regular phone, Android smartphone, etc).

Second hand and “hand me down” iPhones are expected to also grow the overall user base, an important trend for publishers and app developers alike.

Telsyte predicts phablets (smartphones with screens 5.5 inches or larger) will make up as much as 20 per cent of the overall Australian smartphone market by the end of 2016, with the iPhone 6 Plus an important catalyst.

Premium price will deter some buyers

In today’s world of sub-$300 smartphones, the biggest challenge might be Apple’s local pricing. Of the new iPhone 6 configurations only the iPhone 6 16GB comes in below $999. This might impact demand, particularly for outright purchases (i.e. not on contract or a payments plan). Apple might be creating a new “luxury” category – or maybe “ultra-premium” – given it is going against overall industry downward pricing trends.

High purchase prices also increase the importance of contracts and MRO payment plans, likely to be a key strategy of the carriers to lure customers, amongst other incentives.

The price shock might put off some of those who intended to purchase an iPhone 6. To put it into perspective, an iPhone 6 128 GB (A$1,129) will cost more than a MacBook Air 11” 128 GB (A$1,099).

Wearable Apple one to watch

Telsyte believes there were 380,000 smartwatch users (at the end June 2014) in Australia. Nearly 80 per cent of those smartwatch users were using Android smartphones; therefore the market could substantially grow with the arrival of the Apple Watch. Telsyte believes the Apple Watch will help it retain customers given it will work with the iPhone 5 or later.

Its release in 2015 might be strategic, so as to not affect iPhone 6 sales during the holiday season. It also gives developers time to create their smartwatch apps with WatchKit.

There is still some doubt of the usefulness or long term utility of smartwatches, while they simply remain accessories and not a replacement for smartphones all together.

As a result of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch launch, Telsyte expects moves from competitors, including aggressive marketing of smartwatches and handsets by Samsung, Sony and others, given Apple’s Watch is not released until 2015.

Telsyte analysts are available for interviews and further commentary:

• Foad Fadaghi: +612 9235 5851
• Alvin Lee (carrier insights): +612 9235 5890
• Rodney Gedda (enterprise): +612 9235 5891

The material in this article is copyright protected and not intended to be altered, copied, distributed or used for any commercial/non commercial purpose, except for news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching or scholarship.

Australian tablet sales drop 28% in first half of 2014; lack of reasons to upgrade holding back market

Apple’s iPad outsold by Android-based devices for first time, Windows-based tablets gaining ground

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – There were 1.8 million media tablets sold in Australia in the first half of 2014, a 28 per cent decline from the previous six months, according to a new study from emerging technology analyst firm Telsyte.

Following three solid years of growth, the impact of a slowing demand was exasperated with the traditionally slower first half retail cycle. The Telsyte Australian Media Tablet Market Study 2014 reveals longer upgrade cycles are impacting new sales with the market now in a lull as customers wait for a reason to upgrade. Despite this, the population penetration of media tablets increased to 46% or 10.8 million people at the end of June 2014.

The most popular tablet in use remains the iPad 2 which was originally released back in March 2011, and despite its age is expected to be able to run Apple’s latest mobile operating system iOS8, due to be released alongside the new iPhone 6 in September.

Android just outsells Apple, but trend will likely reverse in H2

More Android units were sold for the first time in Australia in the first half of 2014, following global trends despite Australia’s love affair with Apple products.

Apple has retained 46 per cent tablet market share, with the rest market being made up of Android (47 per cent) and Windows-based devices (7 per cent).

Telsyte managing director, Foad Fadaghi, says sales of Android-based units just edged out Apple for the first time in the six months to June 30, but he believes this trend will be reversed in the second half of 2014, restoring Apple’s number one place by year’s end.

“Apple should have a strong second half if it can bring upgraded models to market and benefit from a halo effect created by the iPhone 6 launch” Fadaghi says.

“More than half of iPhone users already have an iPad, whether consumers upgrade both this year will be the question many will be asking” Fadaghi says.

Telsyte surveys are showing greater purchase intentions for iPads overall in H2, and higher repeat purchase intentions by existing iPad users than Android tablet users.

Low-end devices continue to flood the market putting pressure on premium Android tablet sales. And despite Android units outselling iPads for the first time, Android only captured a third of the market in terms of dollar value.

Two million units forecast to sell in H2, as smartphone buying cycle hits.

Telsyte forecasts 2.1 million tablet units to be sold in H2 2014, which will be influenced by a strong smartphone purchasing cycle expected to start in October. Telsyte believes new smartphone sales might delay purchases of new media tablets for many existing users until 2015 and beyond.

“A tablet upgrade cycle might not commence until current devices become more readily obsolete, either in terms of computational capability, operating system, application interoperability, graphics or connectivity,” Fadaghi says, adding the ability to work with wearable devices or sensors might be a driving factor for upgrades.

According to Telsyte, the demand for smartphones is expected to be nearly three times more than media tablets for the second half of 2014*.

Telsyte research has also shown the impact of phablets on the purchase intention of tablets in H2 is marginal (Only 5% less likely to be considering buying a new tablet in H2, if using a phablet currently, compared to standard smartphone users). This might change following the impact of a larger screen iPhone 6.

*https://www.telsyte.com.au/?p=2497 (Telsyte forecast 5.6 Million smartphones will be sold in H2, 2014)

For further information on the study or media inquiries contact:

Foad Fadaghi
Managing Director
Tel:  +612 9235 5851 
Twitter: @foadfadaghi
Email: ffadaghi@telsyte.com.au

About Telsyte’s Australian Media Tablet Market Study 2014

Telsyte’s Australian Media Tablet Market Study 2014 is a comprehensive study which provides subscribers with:
• Tablet market sizing, platform and vendor market shares and forecasts
• End user trends across devices, services and mobile media
• Purchase intentions
• Discussions on strategic issues including platform and manufacturer trends
• Product reviews and insights
• Tablet audience estimates for media companies

In preparing this study, Telsyte used:
• Financial reports released by mobile carriers, manufacturers and service providers.
• Interviews conducted with executives from mobile operators, vendors, retailers, and channel partners.
• An online survey of a representative sample of Australians 16+ years of age conducted with 1,018 respondents in June 2014.
• On-going monitoring of local and global market and vendor trends.

About Telsyte
Telsyte delivers strategic insights and advisory services to businesses that are producing, or are impacted by, disruptive technologies. Telsyte publishes studies into emerging consumer and business markets and provides custom research and advisory services. Our market leading coverage includes mobility, enterprise IT, digital media and telecommunications. Telsyte is a wholly-owned independent business unit of UXC Limited. UXC is an ASX-listed Australian IT services company and the largest Australian-owned ICT consultancy firm with over 2,500 customer organisations in the private and public sectors across Australasia. www.telsyte.com.au

The material in this article is copyright protected and not intended to be altered, copied, distributed or used for any commercial/non commercial purpose, except for news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching or scholarship.