Amazon’s Growing Digital Empire

According to a Forrester report, e-commerce sales in the U.S. are projected to grow 13% this year to $262 billion. e-commerce sales are estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 9% over the period 2012 through 2017 to be worth $370 billion by 2017. E-commerce may be growing, but Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is counting on other avenues to help continue their own growth story.

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Apple Needs to Do Something Big

According to IDC, the smartphone market is projected to grow from 918.6 million units estimated this year to 1.52 billion units by the year 2017. The researcher projects growth to be driven by emerging markets of Brazil and India and continuing strength of the Chinese market. iPhones were the best selling smartphone in the U.S. market, with a 39% share for the three-month period ending February compared with 35% a year ago. As Apple increases their retail presence worldwide, they saw an improvement in the Japanese market, where the iPhone became the lead selling smartphone for 2012. But their strategy for emerging markets remains unclear.

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Netflix Becomes HBO; Target for Apple?

The latest quarter continued to see Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) on the rebound as the stock recovered from its large drop more than a year ago when the company was forced by market sentiment to retract plans to increase subscription charges. The stock had also seen significant devaluation when the company failed to add subscribers at a fast enough pace and invested heavily in both domestic and international expansion. Though the stock may not have reached its earlier glory days, for now, it has recovered and analysts expect it to continue to do so.

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Microsoft After Windows 8

IDC’s PC shipment report continues to suggest an imploding PC market. Globally, PC shipments fell 14% over the year to 76.3 million units, a much bigger reduction than the 8% decline that the researcher had estimated earlier. IDC attributed the higher-than-anticipated fall to the weak market response for Windows 8 and the growth of tablets and smartphones. The U.S. market reported a 13% reduction to 14.2 million units, reporting its lowest level since 2006.

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eBay Aims to Expand PayPal Significantly

According to a Forrester report, online retail sales in the U.S. are projected to grow annually at 10% from $231 billion this year to $370 billion by 2017. Despite the continuing slowdown in European economies, the researcher expects the market to pick up as well as online retail sales grow from $165.6 billion during the current year to $247.1 billion by 2017, translating to an annual growth rate of 10.5%. Forrester believes that the growth of online retail is attributed to the increasing adoption of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

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Google’s Mobile Strategy

According to a Gartner report released earlier this year, the worldwide mobile advertising market is projected to be worth $11.4 billion during the current year, compared with $9.6 billion estimated for the previous year. Gartner estimates the market to be worth $24.5 billion in 2016. The market is seeing strong growth driven by the increased adoption of mobile devices in emerging markets. The North American market is projected to grow from $3.18 billion last year to $3.83 billion during the current year and to $8.87 billion by 2016. But Asia remains the largest market with an estimated $4.33 billion last year projected to grow to $9.48 billion by 2016.
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Yahoo’s Talent Acquisition Drive

eMarketer’s latest report projects the U.S. display advertising market to be worth $23.87 billion by 2015. Display advertising in the country was estimated at $14.98 billion last year and is projected to grow to $17.70 billion during the current year. The market should see strong growth in display ad revenues by Twitter, Google, and Facebook. Google will likely remain the leader in the segment, with an estimated 38% growth this year to account for $3.11 billion in display ad revenues. Facebook will be the second biggest player in the market, with growth of 26% over the year and $2.75 billion in display ad revenues. Meanwhile, Yahoo is projected to continue to flounder and will see just 1% growth in display ad revenues as it grows to $1.37 billion.

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Zscaler’s Security-as-a-Service Offering

According to Gartner, the cloud-based security services market is estimated to be worth $4.2 billion by 2016. The researcher estimates that by 2015, the cloud will be the delivery platform for 10% of total IT security enterprise product capabilities. San Jose–based Zscaler is one organization working to transform enterprise security by building the world’s largest security cloud so that users can access a safe cloud even outside of their corporate networks.

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