Apple sold 67m iPads through March 2012, and retains over 70% market share for premium tablets. Apple is aiming for the same long term dominance it enjoyed with the iPod, which maintained similar market share for a decade Microsoft and Google are taking radical steps to try to change this. Both are now making and selling their own hardware, while Google will sell a tablet at cost Microsoft and Google now have coherent tablet propositions, but they remain far behind on broader app ecosystems. Like Nokia, they are now back in the game, but they still have to play

In this report we show the findings of our 2012 UK mobile user survey. The report is a wide ranging analysis of the mobile market based on our consumer research, focusing on the competitive landscape among the mobile operators and smartphone manufacturers, and the changing consumer behaviour that has and will continue to impact the market

Recent news flow and feedback from media buyers indicates that growth in UK internet advertising is slowing due to the ongoing weakness in the economy

Paid search, buttressed by its link to e-commerce and measurable ROI, is suffering less than internet display, with growth in spend on social media slowing and price deflation especially for non-premium inventory

Online classifieds are also being hit by the economic woe, resulting in some sectors growing more slowly and non-advertising communications taking a larger share of spend; the secular shift to the internet continues

Apple has announced the features of the next version of iOS, the platform that runs the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Key steps includes the replacement of Google Maps with Apple’s own mapping service, Facebook integration and expanded features for the Chinese market.

By replacing Google Maps, and in numerous smaller ways, Apple is starting to direct its users away from Google: a key theme across many new features is moving search and discovery away from raw web search.

Apple also announced a solid refresh of its laptop line (though the Mac business is now only 13% of revenues) and did not announce a new television product, despite frantic rumours that it would.

The Apple rumour mill turns to television, with widespread speculation that Apple will shortly announce… something, that will offer a different approach to the TV experience.

 However, if Apple distributes TV content in new ways, it will need to work with existing channels and often pay providers, who are unlikely to enable fundamental disruption to their business models.

 We see plenty of scope for Apple to make a great TV product – which need not necessarily be an actual television. But we see far less scope for it to break apart the value chain of TV content – and Apple doesn’t need to

Analysis of comScore data suggests that ad volumes fell in April on Facebook’s PC-based website in the US and UK, which we estimate account for 60% of ad revenue Seasonal effects may account for some of the decline, but increasing pressure on ad performance and pricing, due to the tough economic climate, and slowing growth in PC usage of Facebook are other probable factors As a result we expect Facebook’s ad revenue growth slowdown to continue in Q2, with audience saturation in key internet markets and increasing mobile substitution limiting future growth potential from display advertising

In the last few quarters the iPhone has grown to 50% of total smartphone unit sales in the USA, while smartphones overall are now around 42% of the installed base

In the last 12 months we estimate US mobile operators spent around $15bn subsidising iPhones, slightly under 9% of their revenue

The key factor driving increased US iPhone share is increased distribution: it was over two thirds of AT&T’s reported smartphone sales for each of the last 8 quarters, but AT&T only had a third of the market; when Apple added Verizon Wireless in Q1 2011 and Sprint in Q4, it immediately took over half of their smartphone sales as well, powering it to 50% of total US smartphone sales in Q1 2012

Facebook will confirm its status as an internet superpower on 18 May when it goes public at a valuation now expected to be between $93-104 billion

The social network’s revenue fell quarter-on-quarter for the first time in Q1 2012, partly due to seasonal effects, amidst a broader slowdown in annual revenue growth on the shift to mobile consumption

Investor interest is being fuelled less by current performance than longer term potential for growing Facebook’s audience of 901 million and improving monetisation

On 9 April Facebook bought the 547-day-old Instagram for about $1 billion in cash and shares, acquiring 40 million users, strengthening its positioning in mobile and photo sharing and preventing anyone else from buying it first

That Instagram could grow to be so big, so quickly, and with just 13 staff and $7 million of funding shows how precarious Facebook’s market leadership might still be. This is not a one-off – many more companies will use cloud services, mobile and social to achieve similar growth in future

This acquisition comes in the context of explosive growth in mobile and social and an accompanying land grab by Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google and many others. More eye-catching deals are likely to follow

According to IABUK/PwC, internet advertising grew 14.4% like-for-like in 2011 to £4.8 billion, overtaking press to become the single largest advertising medium

Search was again the main growth driver, surging 17.5% to £2.7 billion last year, while display rose 13.4% and classifieds increased just 5.2% on the weak economy

We now forecast internet advertising will increase 14% in 2012 and 12% in 2013, taking spend to £6.1 billion or 36% of UK advertising, up from 30% in 2011