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IDC Survey: U.S. Commercial Smartphones — Channels and Acquisition Overview

Ramon T. Llamas — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey provides a forward-looking view of corporate smartphone purchasing channels, examining where organizations buy company-provided smartphones today and how channel preferences are expected to shift in the near term.

Through direct comparisons between 2025 and 2026, the study highlights changes in channel mix across mobile operators, retailers and online retailers, resellers, systems integrators and consultancies, OEM direct, and device-as-a-service providers, offering insight into evolving go-to-market dynamics.

This IDC Survey also explores the key reasons organizations select a primary purchasing channel and the factors that could drive switching, including pricing and payment flexibility, speed of delivery, access to new models, provisioning and deployment support, and availability of device-as-a-service options.

In addition, the questionnaire examines how channel choice connects to purchasing mechanics, including expected payment approaches, anticipated per-device spending, and planned smartphone refresh timing.

Finally, this study assesses the broader role of the primary channel by capturing whether it also supplies accessories and related devices, helping clarify how organizations consolidate mobility procurement through preferred partners.

Physical AI: Powering the Next Industrial Revolution

Abhishek Mukherjee, Mukesh Dialani — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Physical AI is transforming industrial operations by embedding advanced AI into physical assets, enabling autonomous, intelligent action in complex environments. This shift drives productivity, safety, and resilience across sectors, but success depends on deep domain expertise, robust integration, and disciplined engineering. Engineering service providers are critical in bridging technical gaps, orchestrating technology, and ensuring sustainable, enterprisewide deployment, positioning physical AI as a core driver of competitive advantage in the next industrial revolution.

"Physical AI is not just automating tasks, it is redefining the boundaries of what machines and humans can achieve together. As advanced intelligence is embedded into the very fabric of industrial assets, the next industrial revolution will be won by those who master the art of seamless integration, resilient engineering, and human-machine collaboration. The future belongs to enterprises bold enough to bridge the execution gap and turn complexity into competitive advantage." — Abhishek Mukherjee, research manager, digital engineering and operational technology services, IDC

RSAC 2026 Showcases Endpoint Management and Security Convergence with New AI-Enabled Automation Tools

Phil Hochmuth — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

While AI and agentic-based security dominated most of the 2026 RSA Conference (RSAC) discussion and news, the topic of endpoint device management and security convergence emerged as an underlying theme at RSAC. While mainly an industry event for security product launches, purveyors of patch, configuration, and unified endpoint management (UEM) tools had a strong presence at the event, signaling the industry's effort to address the increasingly blurred line between IT security and operations teams. These management product vendors at RSAC positioned their offerings as integral components of broader security architectures.

IDC's 2026 NVIDIA GTC Roundup

Linn Huang — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

From March 16 to 19,San Jose, California, played host to NVIDIA's GTC showcase. The event brought together developers, engineers, and other IT professionals to explore the latest and greatest in AI and accelerated compute.

Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Semiconductor Market Share by Vendor, Phone Generation, and Semiconductor Type, 4Q25

Phil Solis — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Pivot Tablet contains quarterly (2012 to the previous quarter) market size and share by vendor, the air interface generation of the mobile phone (highest generation supported), and major semiconductor type. It contains shipments by vendor for some semiconductor types and revenue by vendor for all semiconductor types. The major semiconductor components covered are:

Discrete application processors (shipments and revenue)
Discrete baseband processors (shipments and revenue)
Integrated baseband processors (shipments and revenue)
Transceivers (revenue)
RF front end (revenue for discrete and modules, including power amplifiers, LNAs, switches, and filters)
mmWave semiconductors and modules (revenue)

Major vendors covered include:

Apple
Broadcom
Google
HiSilicon
MediaTek
Qorvo
Qualcomm
Samsung
Skyworks
UNISOC
And other vendors in historical quarters that have left the market

AI-Driven Network Operations and Maintenance

Hyder Aftab — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation discusses how telecom operators in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (META) are navigating a shift from legacy operations and maintenance (O&M) practices toward AI-driven and autonomous network operations. IDC survey data from META operators show that integration complexity and high operating costs are the top OSS/BSS pain points, while increasing AI and automation capabilities consistently emerge as a key investment driver across O&M domains. Opex reduction and service quality improvement top the list of operators' AI initiative goals. AIOps adoption reflects a market in transition; the majority of operators report partial adoption, with tools deployed at the domain level rather than as integrated cross-domain platforms. GenAI engagement is broad across all use cases surveyed, though production deployment rates remain modest, consistent with a market where POC and implementation activity is ahead of full-scale rollout.

Progress toward Level 4 autonomous operations varies by network domain. RAN shows the greatest advances, while core networks and datacenter environments are in the earlier stages — reflecting multi-vendor complexity and legacy dependencies. Deployments at STC, MTN, and China Mobile provide reference points for what autonomous O&M delivers at scale — including reduced fault resolution times, higher network reliability, and energy savings — with unified orchestration platforms as the common enabler in each case. OSS/BSS interoperability remains the most cited integration barrier, with implications for service assurance, GenAI, and agentic AI adoption timelines. Vendors that address cross-domain integration, align with open standards (e.g., TMF Open APIs and CAMARA), and adapt solution design to the maturity differences between markets in the Gulf and the broader MEA region are well-positioned for the next phase of operator investment.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Are Communications Service Providers Capitalizing on Their High-Performance Network for the Surge in Edge AI Adoption?

Ajeet Das — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight presents the evolving use cases for edge AI and organizations' top criteria for supporting AI workloads at the edge. It contains data from IDC's January 2026 Worldwide AI in Networking Special Report based on responses from 330 enterprises worldwide.

"As edge AI maturity advances, the selection criteria for enterprise solutions are shifting away from basic hardware toward high-performance connectivity and data offloading. The market is recognizing that 'intelligence at the edge' is only as effective as the network supporting it. In 2026, the winners in the space — particularly in etlecom and retail — are those prioritizing low-latency wired and wireless integration to handle the specialized AI workloads that on-device compute cannot manage alone." — Ajeet Das, research director, Telecom Infrastructure at IDC

The Agentic Pivot: Findings from RELEX Live London 2026

Lorenzo Veronesi — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective provides an overview of key manufacturing topics discussed at the RELEX Live event in London on March 5, 2026. It focuses on developments in the company’s advanced production planning and scheduling (APS) and agentic AI solutions.

“Reactive ‘firefighting’ is being replaced by self-learning systems that prioritize foresight and autonomous execution,” said Lorenzo Veronesi, associate research director, IDC Manufacturing Insights.

AI Adoption in Endpoint Device Management Operations and Tools

Phil Hochmuth — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective looks at how enterprises IT operations teams plan to use AI-enabled endpoint device management tools to address problems existing in today’s enterprise patch management environments.

"With the introduction of advanced AI-based capabilities into endpoint management teams arsenal of management tools, enterprise IT teams may actually be on the cusp of addressing the time-to-patch gap in a meaningful way." — Research Vice President Phil Hochmuth, Endpoint Device Management and Enterprise Mobility, IDC.

European Enterprise Communication Service Provider Profile: AT&T Business

Masarra Mohamed — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation provides an in-depth analysis of AT&T Business’ strategy, operations, and market positioning in the enterprise communications sector. It begins with IDC’s view, highlighting AT&T’s focus on delivering secure, scalable global connectivity and enabling digital transformation for multinational corporations. It first provides an overview of AT&T Business’ organizational structure, leadership team, and strategic priorities, emphasizing its role as a network-enabled technology provider integrating connectivity, edge computing, and cybersecurity. It then examines financial performance, noting the shift toward next-generation connectivity, which now accounts for 60% of AT&T Business Solutions’ revenue, despite overall revenue pressure from legacy declines. The presentation also assesses AT&T Business’ competitive positioning compared with Europe-headquartered telcos. It also details AT&T’s global infrastructure assets, portfolio, partner ecosystem, and go-to-market and messaging strategies, which enable the company to deliver consistent managed services across more than 200 countries. Finally, IDC recommends that AT&T enhance marketing visibility, promote its NetBond platform, and leverage automation and AI to expand beyond traditional large multinational corporations.