Kharif is a reporter for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek in Portland, Ore. She covers technology, with a particular focus on wireless communications. Kharif joined BusinessWeek in November 2000. Kharif has a graduate journalism degree from Northwestern University.
Large-screen smartphones — often called phablets — have been getting a lot of attention lately. But so far, the devices make up only a tiny portion of the global mobile market, according to a new study. Flurry, a mobile analytics company,...
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Photograph by Brent Lewiin/Bloomberg
Huawei Technologies, China's largest phone-equipment maker, forecasts significant growth in Africa.
With wireless service and equipment sales growth in the developed world slowing, some companies in the mobile-phone industry are setting their sights on Africa. Demand for smartphones and mobile services is poised to grow significantly for Huawei Technologies, Li Dafeng,...
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Photograph by Getty Images
More than 6 percent of households own more than 15 connected devices, according to the study.
Good luck unplugging: The average U.S. household owns five devices connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi, wired or cellular networks, according to new research from consultant Chetan Sharma. The survey of more than 1,000 people also revealed this shocker: more...
Read more »Consumers who access mobile websites related to restaurants, travel and cars are often close to making a purchase, a survey from Nielsen found. Some 87 percent of users searching for restaurants on their mobile phones and tablets planned to make...
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Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Prepaid mobile phone products sit on display at a Family Dollar Stores Inc. location in Sterling, Illinois.
As the economy continued to sputter, the number of prepaid wireless services users in the U.S. topped 100 million for the first time in the second quarter, according to a report from analyst Chetan Sharma. The prepaid sector — where...
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Photograph by Yuji Sakai
About four out of five people who check the Internet from their mobile phones report slow downloads of Web pages and e-mails.
Despite the impressive names cellular carriers have come up with for their wireless-data systems, such as 3G, 4G and 4G LTE, subscribers are still reporting issues. Most mobile-phone owners in the U.S. say they sometimes experience slow download speeds and...
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Software makers are having to spend more to attract new users, according to a study by Fiksu.
(This post was updated to correct user definition in second paragraph and downloads time frame in fourth paragraph.) Getting noticed on Apple’s App Store has become more expensive for developers this year, while application downloads haven’t increased much, according to...
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Photograph by James Whitaker
PriceGrabber found that nearly 14 percent of respondents planned to do back-to-school shopping from their mobile phone.
If you notice more people glued to their smartphones while back-to-school shopping, it might be because they’re looking for a better deal. About 37 percent of consumers said they plan to compare prices on their mobile devices while at brick-and-mortar...
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Photograph by Stephen Wilkes/Gallery Stock
In the first quarter of this year, China became the world’s first country to have 1 billion mobile subscribers.
China, a country where 40 percent of households can afford a smartphone, is expected to double that number in five years as disposable incomes continue to grow, a new study said. By 2017, 80 percent of China’s households will be...
Read more »As the iPad and other tablets grab more of consumers’ attention, so too are the devices attracting more of marketers’ money. Marin Software, which helps manage the ad campaigns of more than 1,800 advertisers and agencies, examined their spending in...
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