growth

Worldwide shipments of cell phones in the second quarter increased 4.7 percent compared to the first, according to a report from iSuppli. The growth marked the first successive increase for the market since the third quarter of 2008. Global shipments reached 265 million units in the second quarter, up from 253 million in the first.

More than two million U.S. households used online banking and bill payment last year, according to a survey sponsored by Fiserv and conducted by Harris Interactive. A total of 69.7 million households with Internet access now use online banking services to access balance, account history and to transfer money between accounts. In addition, 64.4 million households pay at least one bill online at a bank website or at a company website.

I think it's safe to say that the initial boost from the Bing launch is pretty much over, but as that pricey marketing campaign continues to run on televisions around the country, the number of unique Bing visitors (according to Compete) is rising steadily.

Over the weekend, Twitter found itself victim to the tomfoolery of 4chan as the online community's members apparently launched an initiative to make "#gorillapenis" a trending topic. They were successful, but Twitter of course responded by removing it from the trending topics. What is 4chan?

Global PC shipments are on track to reach 274 million units in 2009, a 6 percent decrease from 2008 shipments of 292 million, according to Gartner. Despite the overall decline, Gartner now expects the PC market to post positive growth in the fourth quarter of 2009, setting the stage for a solid market recovery in 2010 with a forecast of growth of 10.3 percent.

More than half (62%) of households in the U.S. had Internet access in 2007, an 18 percent increase from 1997, according to new data from the Census Bureau. Sixty-four percent of individuals 18 and over used the Internet from any location in 2007, while only 22 percent did so in 1997. Among households using the Internet in 2007, 82 percent used a high-speed connection, and 17 percent used a dial-up connection.

Global mobile phone sales totaled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a 9.4 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2008, according to Gartner. Smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7 percent increase from the same period last year.

Update: Hulu is reportedly critical of the latest ranking it has received from Nielsen Online. Nielsen reported 8.9 million visitors to Hulu in March, while comScore said there were 42 million. There were 373 million videos viewed on Hulu in April, up from348 million in March. Even though the number of videos viewed was up, Nielsen said unique visitors to Hulu had declined from 9.5 million in February to 8.9 million in March to 7.4 million in April.