What's Important in the Financial World (12/7/2012)

A rare piece of good news for Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows came out of a new IDC report on tablet PC sales. Over the period from 2012 to 2016, the market share of Windows as a tablet OS will grow from 2.9% to 10.3%. This larger market share will be part of a growing pie:

A strong competitive landscape — including surging Android tablet shipments and robust demand for Apple’s new iPad mini — has led International Data Corporation to increase its 2012 forecast for the worldwide tablet market to 122.3 million, up from its previous forecast of 117.1 million units. In the latest forecast update of the Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, IDC also raised its 2013 forecast number to 172.4 million units, up from 165.9 million units. And by 2016 worldwide shipments should reach 282.7 million units, up from a previous forecast of 261.4 million units.

Despite the improvement for Windows, operating systems for tablets will continue to be dominated by Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iOS and Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android. iOS will have a market share of 49.7% in 2016, based on the IDC forecast. Android’s share will be 39.7%. The numbers suggest that the iPad will not completely dominate the market four years from now.

Top Chinese Brands

Using its black-box methodology, which makes its conclusions impossible to understand or critique, Millward Brown released BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2013. The top five part of the list had no surprises: China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHU) at $50.6 billion, ICBC at $40.4 billion, China Construction Bank at $24 billion, Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) at $22.7 billion and Tencent at $20.2 billion. The value of China’s brands has been damaged along with the nation’s economic prospects. In the introduction to the study, the authors wrote:

Brand strength is key to sustained commercial success, as this year’s survey demonstrates. For the first time since we first published this study in 2011, The China Top 50 declined in brand value. The decrease, a relatively minimal 1.6 percent, is attributed mostly to the slower growth rate of China’s economy.

Monster November Employment

Job site Monster released its data on jobs, and it was better than many other reports on U.S. employment. According to its November report:

• Monster Employment Index U.S. grows seven percent on annual basis in November
• Retail Trade (up 16 percent) leads all sectors in annual growth, while real estate and rental and leasing sector continued to track double-digit growth
• Arts, Entertainment and Recreation and Utilities record negative year-over-year growth, while Management of Companies and Information remain flat
• Among the metro markets tracked by the Index, Los Angeles records top growth, while New York loses momentum

No fiscal cliff impact here.

Douglas A. McIntyre