Welcome to the new Connected Intelligence website. We were long overdue for this update to better reflect how our services have evolved over time. Since our inception, we’ve expanded beyond TV/Video and Mobile to include Wearables, VR and Smartglasses, Smart Home devices and subscriptions, Ecosystem analysis and deep tracking of the underlying broadband service available to consumers.
As well as broadening the scope of devices we track, we’ve also gone deeper in each category. Streaming subscription tracking, certified pre-owned devices and unlocked mobile phones are just a few of the expansions we’ve undertaken, thanks primarily to feedback and suggestions from our customers.
The new site re-prioritizes the most important research and we’ve also opened things up a bit with access to the blogs and Week in Reviews for all practice areas, not just the ones within your subscription. You can also browse around other service areas to see if any additional reports pique your interest.
How the world has changed
We launched Connected Intelligence in 2011 to track the ownership and use of consumer technology devices. This research dovetailed perfectly with the core Circana data assets that track purchases (both point of sale and receipt data), providing us with a clear view of the consumer’s total purchase, ownership and replacement cycles for technology. The sales assets also provide a unique data validation tool for the consumer survey data, ensuring a high degree of accuracy in our findings.
Looking back at those early days, the consumer/tech world was very different.
- Smart TVs were just beginning to emerge and Blu-ray Disc players were still very much a thing. Indeed, the Blu-ray Disc player was one of the core ways that consumers connected their TVs to the Internet to get streaming services.
- Netflix had just 24.3 million streaming subscribers and Internet speeds were slower, and sparser across the country, making streaming for many a game of patience with the buffering wheel of frustration.
- Few outside of academia were talking about Artificial Intelligence. Heck, Siri didn’t launch until October 2011.
- Wearables were not a thing. If you wanted to track your step count, Fitbit had a basic step counter available. The first “real” smartwatch – the Pebble – launched a year later in 2012. Apple launched its first smartwatch in 2015 while Samsung was quicker out of the gate, launching in 2013.
- Smartphones were smaller: the original iPhone had a screen size of roughly 3.5 inches. The latest iPhone 16 Pro Max has a screen that is almost double that, at 6.9 inches.
- Home Automation essentially meant installing a smart thermostat. Little else was available. Google Home did not launch until the end of 2016; Alexa was quicker to market in late 2014 and Apple launched Homekit a couple of months before that in September 2014.
Fast forward to today and Netflix has over 260 million subscribers worldwide and is just one of myriad of streaming solutions. Almost every TV is a smart TV, although streaming media boxes still often control the interface for consumers. Internet speeds have easily surpassed gigabit per second speeds for many, and overall broadband coverage is found in 69% of US households.
But more than that, the consumer tech market is evolving beyond a box-selling focus, with manufacturers looking for additional revenue streams to subsidize the cost of the device itself. Smart Home devices were an early advocate of this approach: you can buy a “smart” camera, but if you want the bells and whistles – such as recordings – you need a monthly subscription. TV OEMs are looking at advertising revenue, either directly or indirectly by selling data, to remain competitive in a market where the price of a TV continues to tumble. Other categories will follow suit.
And, of course, AI has become a “thing of importance” even if it is not clear how it will be used in many cases (see the blog "AI Is Not A Product" for more thoughts).
In other words, the consumer tech world continues to evolve at a breathtaking rate. What will the next 14 years bring us? AI will certainly find its home in many devices making them smarter and more contextually aware. And who knows, perhaps we’ll all be buying robots to do more of our chores (like Paulie’s robot in Rocky IV). Whatever the tech world brings, we’ll evolve alongside it to support your business needs.