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.