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Large-screen smartphones are proving a hot commodity among more consumers, according to a report released yesterday by NPD Group.

The share of sales of the iPhone and other smartphones with screens of 3.5 inches to 3.9 inches has stayed about the same over the past year, according to NPD's Mobile Track report. But new smartphones sporting screens 4 inches and larger have gobbled up share at the expense of their smaller cousins with screens under 3.5 inches.

To back up its findings, NPD pointed to a range of different smartphones by screen size. The overall share … Read more

Apple closed the introduction of the iPad 2 with a discussion of what it deems the "post-PC" era. On one side of that battleground, the tablet represents a great market expansion opportunity for handset makers such as Motorola and Samsung rushing in to larger form factors. On the other side is Microsoft, standing firm in its treatment of tablets as yet another PC, albeit one that demands more flexibility in terms of processor support and user interface.

Apple--which introduced the iPad as being superior "for some things," is clearly now looking beyond those tasks. The addition of a faster processor and more sophisticated personal content creation applications, such as GarageBand and iMovie, signaled that the tablet is now about more than simply content creation.

But customers got that memo long ago. NPD found that tablet customers have been engaging in a wide range of content creation tasks with their tablets.

For example, according to NPD's Evolving Technology Trends: PC Activities on Non-PC Devices report, more than half of tablet owners reported that they already use that tablet device for personal productivity tasks such as editing music, while an even greater percentage said they used their tablets for office productivity tasks such as word processing and spreadsheets.

This stood in stark contrast to similar tasks on smartphones, where less than a quarter of smartphone owners said that they engage in office productivity tasks on their handsets and only 17 percent engage in such personal productivity tasks. … Read more

NPD's monthly gaming reports will soon include sales of digital content, according to a story published today.

"The goal is to provide our clients with a total point-of-sale games tracking service that incorporates the growing digital channel as well as the currently predominant physical format, and to deliver this at the same frequency as we currently do for new physical retail sales (monthly)," NPD's Anita Frazier told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview.

NPD is considered the definitive source on game sales. The company reports the top sellers in gaming hardware, software, and accessories each month. However, … Read more

February was the Xbox 360's month.

Microsoft's console topped hardware sales last month, according to market researcher NPD, the definitive source for gaming sales data. The Xbox 360 was trailed by the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3, respectively.

Unfortunately, NPD stopped providing actual sales figures last year. But that didn't stop Microsoft and Nintendo from releasing such information. Microsoft said that it sold 535,000 Xbox 360 units last month, representing a 27 percent gain year over year. Nintendo says it sold 454,000 Wii units, helping push its total U.S. console unit sales to more … Read more

These days, there seem to be at least a few signs that the general state of the economy is improving. But video games sales aren't one of them.

For the second straight month, and 10th in the last year, the industry saw sales drop, year over year. According to the NPD Group, which compiles monthly sales statistics for the video games business, total revenues in January came in at $1.16 billion, down 5 percent from $1.22 billion in January 2010.

Over the last year, the industry has seen upswings in monthly year-over-year sales just twice--last November and … Read more

While Microsoft has already let us in on the number of Windows Phone 7 handsets it's sold to carriers and OEMs worldwide, the bigger picture--as in how many consumers have actually made purchases--has been left up to research firms and retailer surveys. New numbers released by the NPD Group bring that picture into focus.

Windows Phone 7 gained 2 percent of the U.S. smartphone market during the last three months of 2010, NPD said in a research report that covers unit sales during that time. That's compared to Android's 9 percent growth over the previous quarter, … Read more

NPD Group says that for the first time, movie rentals from standalone kiosk have a larger market share in the United States than those from brick-and-mortar stores.

"Netflix and other subscription services comprised 41 percent of video rental turns in the third quarter of 2010," NPD wrote, "followed by kiosk rentals at 31 percent, and in-store rentals at 27 percent."

NPD, a research firm, said today that its study found the share of kiosk rentals grew 10 percent from the same quarter in 2009. The data only accounts for disc rentals and does not include movies … Read more

Despite high watermarks like Microsoft selling 8 million Kinect accessories in 60 days, as well as more Xbox 360 units than it ever has before, 2010's overall gaming sales shrunk compared with last year.

The NPD Group, which published its December and annual reports for video games in 2010 earlier today, said total video game sales for the year were $18.58 billion. That's compared with sales of $19.66 billion for 2009, and $21.4 billion in 2008.

NPD said the loss can be attributed to both a 13 percent dip in console hardware spending, as well … Read more

The video game industry posted its best-ever November sales on the strength of Microsoft's Kinect motion controller and games like Call of Duty: Black Ops.

That was the report from industry analyst, The NPD Group, which puts out monthly tallies for total video game software and hardware sales. According to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, the video game business was good for $2.99 billion in November, up 8 percent from $2.76 billion a year earlier, and about $30 million more than the previous record November in 2008.

According to Frazier, every category of the business was up for … Read more