Figures from the latest National Health Interview Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics say that 24.5% of all households in the USA – almost a quarter - do not have a landline telephone but have at least one mobile phone.

Approximately 22.9% of all adults and 25.9% of all children live in households that only have mobiles. That's two out of every nine adults, compared with 2 of every 11 adults at the end of 2008 and 2 out of every 17 adults at the end of 2006.

The global market for preloaded software on mobile phones is likely to more than double from 2008 to 2014, according to new figures from iSuppli Corp. It says this market will expand to $7.7 billion (£5.25 billion) in 2014, up from $3.3 billion in 2008. At the same time, worldwide shipments of smartphones are set to rise from 161.1 million units in 2008 to 497.4 million in 2014.

Preloaded software - applications that are already installed in mobile phones when they're bought by consumers – is paid for by the equipment manufacturer, which either buys it from a third party or develops it in-house.

ABI Research says the number of smartphone applications downloaded from 'app stores' will keep growing until 2013… but those figures will then start to drop.

Last year, consumers downloaded 2.4 billion applications from application stores – a figure that'll almost treble by 2013, when almost 7 billion apps will be downloaded. Apple's App Store will remain the market leader until 2013 according to ABI's report, despite pressure from Android and Symbian. However, ABI Research says the evolution of the mobile internet will then lead to consumers starting to head away from dedicated stores for their software applications. Total app downloads will probably continue to grow, although downloads via app stores are expected to fall.

The worldwide mobile phone market grew 21.7% in the first quarter of 2010… and it welcomed a new face into the 'top 5' manufacturer list. Those are the headlines from a new report by the International Data Corporation. However, IDC says the growth rate is expected to slow, resulting in an average 11% for the year.

Vendors shipped 294.9 million units in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 242.4 million units in the first quarter of 2009.

Research company FirstPartner says the UK's mobile advertising market will grow by 33% to reach £49.8 million this year – and will then accelerate until it's delivering revenue of £285 million per annum by 2014. The next largest markets in Europe are Germany and Italy; their anticipated revenues this year are £42.6 million and £38.4 million respectively. Overall, mobile advertising is expected to be worth £1.1 billion in Western Europe by 2014, with this growth dominated by mobile search.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.