A new report from the Consumer Electronics Association says the average US household spent $1,179 (around £732) on consumer electronics products in the past 12 months, a drop of $201 from the previous year.

American households were calculated to contain 24 separate consumer electronics products, down from 25 in 2010.

James Rosewell writes:

Microsoft have been talking about Mango, the upcoming upgrade to Windows Phone 7 incorporating their battery-friendly flavour of multi-tasking and 499 other new features. They've also welcomed Fujitsu, Acer and ZTE to the Windows Phone fold. However there was no significant news from Nokia and Microsoft. No timeframe for handsets, nothing in fact. Both companies are being tight lipped about the partnership at the moment.

App store analyst company Distimo and games market research firm Newzoo are working together to provide monthly data on game sales and downloads across the Apple App Store in various markets.

Their first report shows that half of all free and paid app downloads across the USA, UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium are games.

A report from TNS says the adoption of mobile finance around the world - using a mobile phone to make payments or to access bank account details - has surged in the last 12 months. Many countries saw the number of new mobile banking users increase by over 100%.

Last year in the UK, just 9.7% of people were using mobile phones to access their bank accounts - but the figure's increased to 20.4% for 2011.

New research from the Ericsson ConsumerLab team has found that found that an increasing number of consumers are using their smartphones to go online before getting out of bed.

35% of Android and iPhone users in the USA said they interacted with non-voice apps before getting up, with almost a fifth of social networking users connecting with Facebook friends while in bed.

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.