IDC Research Types
Analyst
Analyst Profile
Provides complete background information on an IDC analyst. Each profile provides a biography, a notable quotation, a frequently asked question relevant to the particular analyst's focus, and a list of research authored by that analyst.
Team Profile
Lists the analyst members of a topical team. Outlines general areas of coverage and any specialties.
Briefs
Vendor Profile
Provides a concise, hard-hitting profile of an emerging vendor. A profile will highlight new players and technologies and the potential paradigm shifts or disruptions a vendor represents.
IDC Perspective
The IDC Perspective is a flexible doc that seeks to help business and tech buyers assess their business and IT strategy and/or associated business processes, especially as it relates to the use of technology. The document can be used in areas such as:
- Strategy and planning
- Trends and observations
- IT spending and investment
- Vendor conferences and announcements
IDC TechBrief
The IDC TechBrief helps the technology or business executive get smart about a single technology in the context of the business by answering 6 business critical questions about the technology:
- What is the technology?
- When should I adopt it?
- What can it do for my business?
- What are the critical success factors?
- What are the risks?
- Who are the suppliers?
Market Note
The Market Note is a flexible doc that provides IDC analysis and point of view on an industry event, new product or service, or a company announcement or development or fast breaking news.
Market Perspective
The Market Perspective is a flexible doc that analyzes key changes and developments happening in the market. This flexible research type can be used to analyze areas such as:
- Competitive Environment
- Innovation & Market Opportunity
- New Business Models
- Partner & Channel Strategy
- Enterprise Strategies (targeted to supplier)
- Regulation
- Socioeconomics
Event Proceedings
Event Proceeding
Provides published slides, audio, and other materials from IDC and Insights Web conferences, briefings, forums, or other events.
Events
Conference
Delivers dependable, relevant, and high-impact data and insight to help organizations make sound business and technology decisions. eBusiness executives, IT professionals, IT suppliers, and services suppliers benefit from the strategic insight and networking opportunities IDC conferences offer. Generally, all presentation slides are available online, and for most conferences, streaming audio of key discussions is available as well.
Web Conference
Focuses on significant trends and paradigm shifts. Each Web conference will provide attendees with leading-edge market information that will enable them to make smart business decisions. For those unable to attend in person or those wishing to review the content presented, these synchronized multimedia presentations are available online.
IDC DecisionScapes
IDC FutureScape
Serves as a framework for IT/tech professionals' IT strategy and planning for the next one to three years. It lists IDC's top 10 worldwide technology trends for the coming one to three years in a given research area and includes related drivers, projected IT/business strategy impact, and guidance.
IDC MarketScape
Helps IT/tech professionals develop a short list of suitable suppliers when selecting a vendor. Provides an unbiased assessment of tech suppliers in terms of offerings, strategy, capabilities, and other important factors in a given technology area.
IDC MaturityScape
Describes five stages of "maturity" or capability for a particular technology area, helps IT/tech professionals understand where their organizations fit within those stages, and provides guidance on key components for planning successful improvements to a tech initiative.
IDC MaturityScape Benchmark
Helps IT/tech professionals to benchmark their maturity against peers, develop a business case for a tech initiative, and build consensus about where critical IT investments should be made. Presents quantitative research results that show the market distribution for a given tech initiative across the five stages of maturity presented in the related IDC MaturityScape. Shows the results and components of particularly successful initiatives.
IDC PeerScape
Gives IT/tech professionals insight into best practices (and practices to avoid) by providing specific use case examples implemented by peers. Identifies practices that have the most impact on the success of a tech or business initiative, and provides actionable guidance for each practice.
IDC PlanScape
Helps IT/tech professionals to justify and plan a business and/or technology investment or opportunity by exploring why, what, who, and how (these are also the main section headings). Presents key players, critical success factors, risks, and actions to consider for a designated technology and/or business management area.
IDC TechScape
Helps IT/tech professionals with developing IT strategic plans and evaluating emerging technologies in terms of their risk to the business. Shows the adoption curve and risk levels over time for a specific emerging technology. Sorts technologies into three "adoption model" categories (transformational, incremental, opportunistic) to help tech leaders determine the potential impact for their organization.
IDC Links
IDC Link
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece. IDC Links provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
IDC Blink
IDC Blink
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece with a 2-minute audio clip. IDC Blinks provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
Pivot Tables
Pivot Table
Presents an interactive spreadsheet tool for analyzing trends and activities in a specific market segment. These tables are available only through an annual subscription service.
Presentations
IDC Survey
Presents a hypothesis about what is happening in the market backed by the results of a demand-side or supply-side survey. The focus is on interpreting and analyzing the survey results and providing a strong point of view along with actionable advice.
IDC Survey Spotlight
Answers a timely question and provides a strong opinion backed by IDC survey data. This is a quick nugget of information that is presented in two concise PowerPoint slides.
Market Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
Market Analysis Perspective
Delivers a concise current state view of a market and insight into the impact of future trends. Business executives, product managers, and MI/AR professionals can use this information when looking to understand buyers' perspectives and market impacts.
Tech Buyer Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
IDC Market Glance
Provides a look at the landscape of a tech market, including competitive positioning, adjacent segments, and potential partner opportunities.
Press Releases
Press Release
Announces significant corporate news, such as key hirings or promotions, performance milestones, event highlights, or speaking engagements.
Product Information
Fact Sheet
Describes a research product. Usually details the major areas of coverage and deliverables, and outlines key questions and competitive market conditions that the research will address. Includes links to all published research for a research product.
Studies
Industry Developments and Models
Provides a detailed assessment of a specific target market's expansion pattern. This analysis helps clients develop and deploy the right mix of value-add products, programs, or services to support their sales and/or partnering efforts.
Market Forecast
Provides the future of a single market or a group of related markets. It presents a new or updated market forecast, including key drivers and assumptions used in the forecast.
Market Share
Provides data on market size, regional allocations, and platform splits as well as a summary of vendor shares for the most recently completed period (year, quarter).
Special Study
Provides a one-time study produced by a research group that is not published as a deliverable under a subscription service.
Taxonomy
Highlights and emphasizes how IDC tracks the market while also making it easier for customers to find and identify IDC Taxonomy documents.
Technology Assessment
Provides an analysis of the intricacies of an emerging or established technology or the technologies contained within a specific product.
IDC Innovators
IDC Innovators is aimed at informing IT buyers about emerging vendors with an innovative new technology or ground-breaking business model. Vendors identified in the document as innovators are linked together within a specific market area and around solving or alleviating a common business problem. Vendors included have annual revenue under $100 million at the time of selection.
Technology Segment
The IDC Technology Segment offers CEMA clients a comprehensive view of a technology segment in one country or subregion and provides a market view and forecast and/or market share and vendor profiles, including performances and strategies. It is specifically intended to serve smaller country markets and subregions.
On Tuesday, August 13, at its Made My Google event in Mountain View, California Google unveiled its newest smartphones: the Google Pixel 9, the Google Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL, and the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. All four show slight ...
At its Made by Google event in Mountain View, California, Google unveiled its new Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel Buds 2 Pro. While these highlight clear development in terms of hardware from previous iterations, it's the software innovations that ...
This IDC study provides a view of U.S. augmented reality headset market shares by vendor for 2023.
"The U.S. AR market witnessed further consolidation at the top while smaller vendors mostly relied on older models to maintain a position," ...
This IDC Survey — taken in the spring of 2024 — focuses on consumer ownership of smartwatches and wristbands. We polled 786 owners of these devices, focusing on which brands they own, which brands they intend to get next, how much they have ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight looks at the results from IDC's 2024 U.S. Consumer Wearables Survey. We provided 786 participants with a list of health-related experiences that could be made possible by artificial intelligence (AI).
"Artificial ...
This IDC study presents a five-year forecast for the worldwide augmented, extended, mixed, and virtual reality headset market.
"IDC's new taxonomy provides greater specificity and clarity when analyzing and comparing different products," ...
This IDC study presents a forecast for the worldwide wearable computing device market for 2024–2028.
"The worldwide wearables market is on track for slow but steady growth in the years ahead as it slowly reaches maturity," says Ramon ...
At Samsung's Unpacked event in Paris, France, Samsung unveiled the latest additions to its foldables smartphone lineup: the Galaxy Z Fold6 and the Galaxy Z Flip6. While these draw attention for their unique form factors, the real star of ...
At its Unpacked event in Paris, France, Samsung introduced several wearables: the highly anticipated Galaxy Ring, the Galaxy Watch7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra, and finally, the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds3 Pro. In addition to showing clear hardware ...
This IDC study presents the U.S. wearable computing device forecast for 2024–2028.
"2024 marks another year of growth in the U.S. wearables market, marked by slowing growth of its two most popular products — earwear and smartwatches ...
On Tuesday, May 29, Fitbit announced its first connected smartwatch, the Ace LTE. Drawing from its previous Ace wristbands for kids and its Versa and Sense smartwatch hardware, the Ace LTE gamifies fitness to keep kids active and adds safeguards ...
This IDC study examines the market shares of the major vendors in the U.S. smartwatch market in 2023.
"The macroeconomic and inflationary difficulties dampened multiple markets in the United States, including the smartwatch market," ...
This IDC study provides a forecast for the U.S. wearables installed base for the 2024–2028 period.
"The U.S. wearables market is one of the most mature in the world, yet the decline in volumes in 2022 and 2023 compared with pandemic ...
This IDC study discusses a five-year forecast for the worldwide wearables installed base.
"The worldwide installed base of wearable devices continues to swell with a steady stream of device releases and upgrades combined with consumer ...
This IDC study provides a comprehensive overview and definitions for AR/VR headsets. The definitions provided in this document represent the scope of IDC's AR/VR headsets hardware research.
This taxonomy outlines market segmentations ...
This IDC study provides a comprehensive overview and definitions for wearable devices. The definitions provided in this document represent the scope of IDC's wearable device hardware research.
This taxonomy outlines market segmentations ...
On Tuesday, May 7, Google announced the upcoming availability of its Pixel 8A smartphone. Sharing much of the same hardware and many of the same camera and AI features as its Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro cousins, the Pixel 8A looks and feels ...
This IDC study discusses the U.S. smart earwear market shares for 2023.
"Smart earwear continues to be the engine of the wearables market in the United States, and where smart earwear goes, so does the market," says Ramon T. Llamas, ...
This IDC study provides a brief overview of the worldwide hearables market in 2023.
"Hearables remain far and away the most popular wearable devices and the primary drivers of the wearables market. While not as popular as smartphones, ...
This IDC study examines the market shares of major vendors in the U.S. wearables market in 2023.
"The U.S. wearables market posted its second consecutive year of decline," points out Ramon T. Llamas, research director with IDC's Wearables ...
Standalone AR headsets reached 84,800 units shipped in 2023, down 16.1% from the 101,061 units shipped in 2022. Similarly, total value declined 31.0% from $254.1 million in 2022 to arrive at $175.3 million. While most of the leading companies ...
This IDC study examines the market shares of vendors in the worldwide smartwatch market in 2023.
"The worldwide smartwatch market was not immune to the macroeconomic challenges in 2023, and this had different implications across the ...
This IDC study provides a brief overview of the worldwide virtual reality headset market in 2023.
"2023 marked the second consecutive year of decline for the worldwide virtual reality market," says Ramon T. Llamas, research director ...
This IDC study examines the market share of the major vendors in the worldwide wearables market in 2023.
"The end of 2022 and the start of 2023 marked a period of decline following the red-hot growth we saw in 2020 and 2021," said ...
This IDC study presents the five-year forecast for advanced smartwatch shipments in the United States.
"2023 was a challenging year for the U.S. advanced smartwatch market, but 2024 is shaping up to be a year of recovery," points out ...