According to the research firm, global smartphone shipments will hit 937 million units this year. That will just outpace global feature phone shipments – which will top out at 889 million. Looking forward, NPD says that global smartphone shipments will break 1.4 billion by 2016. That’s an annual growth rate of 26%, starting back in 2011.

”The global smartphone market is expected to continue growing rapidly over the next two years,” said Shawn Lee, research director at NPD DisplaySearch. “With larger, higher-resolution displays, faster processors, and higher-capacity cellular systems being built, the smartphone is not only becoming a must-have device, but is satisfying many needs that formerly required other computing and consumer electronics devices.”

Here are the projections:

NPD points to emerging markets, like China for instance, for the growth in smartphone shipments. In fact, China accounts for 55% of entry-level smartphone shipments. The whole Asia-Pacific region will account for half of all global smartphone shipments in 2013.

The availability of cheaper ($200 or less) smartphones, plus the spread of 3G and 4G data has led to this increase in smartphone shipments.

“To increase revenue share and gain margin in the smartphone market, a variety of new handsets, as well as new products launched by service and content providers, will enter the market,” Lee said. “As smartphone specifications and features become more advanced, and as device replacement rates increase, we can expect further investment in the industry by manufacturers, carriers, and governments.”

This news leaves Newt Gingrich absolutely perplexed.

NPD has just published their latest application usage numbers for Netflix Instant and it shows exactly which types of screens are popular, and which really aren’t. As you may expect, watching Netflix on an HDTV screen is very popular. Of those surveyed, 40% stream Netflix to their televisions.

In second place is the trusty computer, which saw 14% of respondents claim as their viewing medium.

Only 13% said they watch Netflix on a tablet, and 8% said they watch it on a smartphone. Honestly, I’m surprised that latter figure is even as high as it is.

That signals a pretty big shift. According to NPD,

“Twenty-one percent of connected TV owners said they migrated from using over-the-top (OTT) video services on the computer and now watch on the TV instead.”

As you would expect, the majority of Netflix streamers are younger. 51% of those who watch Netflix on an HDTV are between the ages of 18 and 34.

[NPD via Engadget]

According to Nintendo, it sold 460,000 Wii U units in December. Combine that with the number of consoles it sold in November, which includes the 400,000 it sold in its first week, and you have combined sales of 890,000 units sold in 2012. Pretty solid numbers if a little disappointing compared to the original Wii’s massive launch. Does that translate to Nintendo being disappointed? Not at all, as the company is thrilled to be making more money on the more expensive console.

“While the Wii launch established new benchmarks in the United States, Wii U has surpassed its predecessor in perhaps the most important category: revenue generation,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “The demand for the Deluxe SKU, which was essentially sold out at retail this holiday, and the strong attach rate of New Super Mario Bros. U, shows that we have the value and the games to drive momentum in 2013. We look forward to offering great new experiences and bringing smiles to millions of new faces throughout the year.”

Speaking of New Super Mario Bros. U, the launch title sold more than 580,000 units in 2012. Nintendo says that’s that an attach rate of more than 65 percent. Now, attach rate isn’t everything, but it’s rare for a game to have that high of an attach rate on any console. It will be interesting to see if the game can keep up the pace as more Wii U units are sold.

As for the Nintendo 3DS, it was a solid holiday season for hardware and software. The 3DS sold 1.25 million units in December and crossed 7.7 million units sold life to date in the U.S. alone. In games, New Super Mario Bros. 2 became the fourth 3DS title to surpass 1 million units sold.

As for Nintendo’s legacy systems, the Wii sold 475,000 units in December with Just Dance 3 becoming the tenth Wii title to sell more than 5 million units. The Nintendo DS is still staying strong as well with 470,000 units sold last month.

All in all, Nintendo sold 2.65 million hardware units in December. The company notes that this is eleventh consecutive year that Nintendo has sold at least 8 million hardware units in the U.S. It’s quite the feat considering the Gameboy and Nintendo DS made up the bulk of those sales before the Wii launched in 2006.

The NPD released a new report yesterday that says gamers are on the decline in the United States. How big of a decline are we talking about here? The report says that the total number of gamers declined by 5 percent, or 12 million gamers. The U.S. population is now host to the still massive number of 211.5 million gamers.

The major contribution to the loss of gamers has been the traditional core gamer population. Another huge area that was hit was the family gamer market which includes parents who buy games for their children on dedicated game consoles or PCs. Their market shrunk by 17.4 million gamers in the past year.

The shrinkage was offset by growth in two big areas – mobile and digital gamers. The NPD reports that the number of mobile gamers increased by 9 percent to 22 percent of the overall market. The number of digital gamers saw an increase of 4 percent to 16 percent of the overall market.

The rise in mobile and digital gamers have outpaced the size of the still rather core segment. That’s a pretty big deal, but it doesn’t mean that the core gaming industry is doomed by any means. In fact, those social and digital players don’t spend the money needed to keep the industry afloat. It’s the continued contributions of core gamers that feed most of the money into the gaming industry.

“Given the long lifecycles of the current consoles and the increasing installed base of smartphones and tablets, it’s not surprising to see a slight decline in the Core Gamer segment,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. “It’s the revenue contribution of the Core Gamer segment that continues to outpace all other segments, and remains vital to the future of the industry.”

To prove that point, they looked at the average purchase of regular gamers versus core gamers. They found that your average run-of-the-mill gamer spent about $48 on physical games and $16 on digital games. In that same period, the core gamer spent $65 on physical games. The amount of money they spent on digital sales was not revealed, but the Steam summer sale must have contributed quite a bit.

On a side note, gamers can no longer complain about extortive DLC. The report found that 14 percent of all gamers said they purchased DLC in the past three months. That’s up from 11 percent in 2011. The core gamers were even more susceptible to buying DLC with 27 percent saying they put down some money for add-on content.

So what do all these numbers mean? As Frazier said, the gaming industry is in a transition stage right now. People are ready for next gen consoles to come out and are getting tired of waiting. Drops in the gamer population always happen near the end of a console lifecycle, but they quickly pick up again once the new technology comes out. The Wii U may be able to spur some growth this November, but expect the real growth to occur once the Xbox 720 launches sometime next year.

The NPD released its usual monthly games industry figures today and things are not looking good. In the U.S., consumers spent a collective $1.1 billion on gaming in July. That’s down 20 percent from last year. Furthermore, the NPD reckons that if these sales trends continue, the industry will only make $14.5 billion in sales this year. The industry as a whole made $17 billion last year.

In other discouraging news, console sales were down the most in July. People generally look to console sales for the health of the industry. Consoles drive game and accessory sales which in turn increase games revenue across the board. Unfortunately, July’s console sales only managed to make about $150 million, which is a 32 percent drop from last year.

Software sales were also down in July by 23 percent. They only managed to rake in $261 million. That’s down from the $338 million that software sales made last year. The only big hits in July were NCAA Football 13, which took the number one spot, and Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes taking second.

While these sales may seem worrying, gamers and analysts shouldn’t be too concerned. For one, NPD doesn’t cover digital sales or mobile sales. Both markets make a fair amount of money, but they’re not accounted for in official figures. If results from the Steam sale in July were made public and added to NPD numbers, thing might look a little different.

It’s also important to note that we’re at the end of a console lifecycle. Everybody interested in a console has already purchased one. The only thing that can perk up console sales now would be a dramatic price cut. There are still people who hold out on buying consoles even this late into the cycle, but they usually won’t budge until the price hits the magic $150 mark.

The launch of the Wii U may have a positive impact near the end of the year depending on a multitude of factors. The two most important, however, are price and availability. We might see a sales surge if Nintendo is able to market the Wii U as effectively as they did the Wii. In all honesty, we’re probably not going to see a major boost in sales until the next Xbox comes out. Beginning of console cycles and the three years following are always the best for the industry.

Regardless, sales are down now and publishers must figure out a way to reverse the trend. You’re going to see a lot of added value and price cuts going forward into the year. Expect to see the PS3 and Xbox 360 both receive substantial price cuts going into the holiday season. The industry is expecting heavy hitters like Assassin’s Creed III and Black Ops II to perform well. If past sales are any indication, that might just be the case.

[h/t: PC Magazine]

Courtesy of figures from NPD, Microsoft has announced that the Xbox 360 sold 236,000 units in the month of April. It held a 47% market share, which marks the 14th straight month that it has held a share over 40%.

Not only that, but the total amount spent in the month by consumer on Xbox 360 products (console, games, and accessories) hit $261 million. That’s more than the PS3 and Wii combined.

Xbox 360 software had a good month as well, according to the figures:

During the month of April, “Kinect Star Wars” held the number one game title in the U.S. Xbox 360 held seven of the top 10 U.S. console game titles including: “Kinect Star Wars,” “The Witcher Two: Assassin of Kings Enhanced ED,” “Prototype 2,” “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13,” “Mass Effect 3,” “NBA 2K12” and “Major League Baseball 2K12.” (Source: NPD Group, April 2012)

Kinect Star Wars isn’t the only Xbox LIVE Arcade game getting some recognition. Yesterday, we told you that the XBLA port of the popular PC game Minecraft shattered records, as it was downloaded more times in its first 24 hours on the market than any other game in XBLA history.

It’s possible that the sales figures for the Xbox 360 will continue to stay solid. Microsoft just announced a new promotional deal that offers the console, along with a Kinect system, for just $99. Of course, the catch is that you have to enter into a 2-year contract.

The NPD Group released the results of a study today that revealed 40 percent of all free-to-play gamers have bought something in these games. Of course, this makes the game freemium instead of free-to-play but we’ll get into a semantics argument later. The results of the study go beyond just the number of people buying stuff in freemium titles, but how the gender breakdown works as well

Interestingly enough, more women play freemium titles than men, but it’s the men who are spending the most on freemium titles. I might chalk this up to the fact that men, more often than women, want the most of out of a game even if it is freemium. I’ve observed that female gamers just like to have fun which doesn’t require the purchase of extra add-ons, etc that male gamers think they need.

“The majority of freemium gamers who opt to pay to upgrade their experience do so within the first month of playing a particular game,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. “When designing a game, it’s important to consider features that would drive quick conversion to pay.”

Other interesting statistics point to there being a high adoption rate of freemium games among those who are aware of them. The NPD study found that only 15 percent of people who were aware of freemium games refused to play them. These kind of games also have a ridiculously high conversion rate of 84 percent which means the majority of players are sticking around after a “trial period.”

The gender statistic comes up again here as well with female gamers more likely to convert than their male equivalents. It was found that 18-to-34-year-old males try out freemium gaming but then abandon ship after trying it. Why? Male players in that demographic are part of the core gaming demographic, and find the experience offered by freemium games lacking in comparison to premium games found on consoles and PC. I think the NPD group got it right when the say that for core gamers, “a freemium game would provide a different experience, like a snack versus a full meal.”

All of this culminates in 38 percent of the U.S. population aged 2 and older playing some kind of freemium game. That’s a big number and one that publishers would be foolish to ignore. I just wonder how many of that 38 percent are children. Facebook and Apple are currently facing lawsuits from angry parents whose children have charged exuberant amounts of money to their accounts while playing freemium games.

Remember kids, that extra playtime in Farmville or Smurf’s Village costs real world money, not just Facebook credits. The developer will be happy that you spent $3,000 on some virtual goods, but your parents will be taking it out of your college fund. Have fun waiting tables to get through school.

[h/t: Joystiq]

Long story short, I looked everywhere for this obscure film. Netflix did not have it. Redbox did not have it. My girlfriend was calling every Blockbuster in a ten mile radius and they did not have it! I spent about 45 minutes on this fruitless pursuit.

Eventually, I realized I could probably just download a digital version online. Of course I could! I didn’t even know you could download a movie from Amazon, but you can, and I did. And what a piece of garbage it was (which has nothing to do with this story)!

The point is, resources are getting ever more expensive and physical retailers (in my opinion) have become more and more disappointing (they never have what we’re looking for). Randomly searching for something can waste a lot of gasoline, time, and energy. Why not just turn on the computer, and download what you want.

NPD Group monitors trends in rentals and guess what they found out? That’s right, people don’t like to drive to Blockbuster! In fact, more people rent from Redbox, probably because it’s closer (in most cases) and it’s cheaper (come on folks, $1 versus $5). Less surprising is that even more people simply just download their movies.

Senior vice president and industry analysis for The NPD Group Russ Crupnick had this to say about the trend:

“The movie-rental market is clearly undergoing a sea change, as consumers become better equipped to access on-demand and streamed movies and are more comfortable with available delivery options”

But old habits die hard and the movie rental business has not completely transformed. 37% of rentals go to Redbox, 31% go to digital and streaming formats, and the remainder go to physical retailers (like Blockbuster). I’m sure this will continue to change as consumers become more comfortable renting online.

NPD data was released today that cemented Microsoft’s position as the leader of 2011 in video game sales. That $6.7 billion worth of sales equated to Microsoft’s sales accounting for 40 percent of all video game sales in 2011.

The entire industry made between $16.3 and $16.6 billion in 2011. This includes both retail and digital game and hardware sales. The sales are down 2 percent when compared to 2010.

New physical content at retail still accounts for the majority of video game sales. Retail generated about $9.3 billion, an 8 percent decrease from last year.

HD console software sales were up 9 percent in 2011. Used games, full-game digital downloads, downloadable content and mobile gaming app sales were up as well.

“Overall industry results are not entirely surprising given that we are on the back end of the current console lifecycle, combined with the continued digital evolution of gaming. Core gamers continue to be engaged and spend on established franchises across both the digital and physical format using multiple devices for different gaming occasions,” Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group, said.

This ties into December seeing only 6.3 million console sales, down from 8.4 million a year ago. This is the lowest level since 2005 which was at the end of the previous console cycle. These are usually the signs of a new console cycle starting up soon.

December was the main factor that brought the year’s sales down. December is typically a strong month for software and console sales, but the NPD notes that sales were down across most software and hardware that month. In fact, the only two platforms to see an increase in sales in December were the DS and 3DS.

The top 10 best-selling games in December were:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
2. Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360, PS3)
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360, PS3, PC)
4. Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
5. Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)
6. Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)
7. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (360, PS3, PC)
8. NBA 2K12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2, PC)
9. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
10. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)

The top 10 best-selling games of 2011 were:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
2. Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360, PS3)
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360, PS3, PC)
4. Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)
5. Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)
6. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC)
7. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)
8. Gears of War 3 (360)
9. Just Dance 2 (Wii)
10. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (360, PS3, PC)

The December and annual sales, even though they are down, represent the fact that gaming is a huge industry that continues to strive. With the increase in mobile gaming and the proliferation of digital sales, it can only get better.

Also, with new hardware like the PlayStation Vita and Wii U launching this year, there should be some good news and sales for video games in 2012.

But research published today by the folks at NPD Group suggests a decline in P2P music downloading since the demise of Limewire. According to NPD, Americans downloaded music via P2P client at a 16% clip in Q4 of 2007. In Q4 of 2010, when Limewire went down, that number had fallen to 9%. More statistics from the study:

The average number of music files downloaded from P2P networks also declined from 35 tracks per person in Q4 2007 to just 18 tracks in Q4 2010, although some downloaded just one or two tracks, while others took hundreds. NPD estimates there were 16 million P2P users downloading music in Q4 2010, which is 12 million fewer than in Q4 2007.

“Limewire was so popular for music file trading, and for so long, that its closure has had a powerful and immediate effect on the number of people downloading music files from peer-to-peer services and curtailed the amount being swapped,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD. “In the past, we’ve noted that hard-core peer-to-peer users would quickly move to other Web sites that offered illegal music file sharing. It will be interesting to see if services like Frostwire and Bittorrent take up the slack left by Limewire, or if peer-to-peer music downloaders instead move on to other modes of acquiring or listening to music.

Yeah, I’m going to go with the find other means option.

After the fall of Limewire, NPR reports an 11% rise in Frostwire use and a 4% rise in uTorrent use. These numbers seem low, especially the uTorrent rise. It might be helpful to note the information was gathered through online surveys. I’m not saying people lie, but people lie. With private tracker torrent sites like waffles.fm and what.cd popping up, people are going to feel more secure in using torrents to download music. (If you can score an invite to one of those sites)

Even with record companies suing for laughable amounts like $75 trillion, for some people that have been freely acquiring all their music since the early days of Napster, it could prove to be an impossible habit to break.