A new report by IMS Research forecasts that the number of mobile machine-to-machine (M2M) connections worldwide will treble in five years, from around 107 million connections in 2011 to 326 million connections by 2016.

It says this growth is being driven by a number of factors, including government regulation, a desire for increased efficiency, declining costs and the availability of services that make it easier to develop M2M applications.

Business advisory firm Deloitte LLP has calculated that around £3.5 billion of Christmas spending in the UK will either be bought on or influenced by smartphones.

It says consumers who use their mobile devices to research prices, store their shopping lists and take their shopping conversations onto social media will account for £3.2 billion of this total, with £330 million of sales being made directly on smartphones.

Samsung Electronics has completed a review of suppliers based in China after a report from China Labor Watch criticised working conditions at one of Samsung’s Chinese suppliers.

CLW said that child labour appeared to be a common practice in one factory, also noting that it had additional concerns about working hours, employment contracts and working conditions.

Nokia has launched two new feature phones today. The Nokia Asha 205 has a QWERTY keyboard and dedicated Facebook button while the Nokia 206 has a ‘candy bar’ design.

Both are expected to go on sale from around $62 SIM-free (£46 incl. VAT) later this year.

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s time to ‘ketchup’ with last week’s biggest mobile industry news stories - and where better to start than with HP’s claims of ‘saucy’ behaviour?  It’s launched an investigation into last year’s acquisition of UK company Autonomy, claiming the software company had ‘spiced up’ its valuation. Condiment-based puns aside, it’s a serious matter that could see key players from the deal charged with cooking the books.