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EL SEGUNDO, CA – Pricing has become the paramount concern for television makers, as the growing emphasis on achieving the lowest possible cost has brought wrenching changes to the competitive landscape and manufacturing structure of the business, says iSuppli Corp.

BOSTON – Sales of backhaul transport equipment will grow 43% annually over the next five years, reaching $7.3 billion by 2012, says Ovum RHK.

Component demand related to backhaul transport equipment will exceed $1 billion by 2012, the company adds, citing a five-year forecast of wireless backhaul traffic, services, equipment and components.

Traffic on mobile backhaul networks will grow by 32% per year, driven by the adoption of mobile broadband services around the globe, and mobile operators will spend $37 billion globally on wireless backhaul in 2012, nearly 12% of total operating expense, Ovum says.

“Mobile operators today are challenged to grow backhaul capacity quickly, flexibly, and economically, to support rapid growth in bandwidth-intensive mobile data services,” said Ovum VP John Lively. “Fortunately, many new architectures and equipment innovations will allow them to meet this challenge."

TEMPE, AZ – The slowdown in housing and other markets is starting to back up on manufacturing, according to a report released today by the Institute for Supply Management.

Manufacturing grew in October but at a slower rate as the PMI registered 50.9%, down 110 basis points from September. A reading above 50% indicates that the manufacturing economy is generally expanding. It was the ninth consecutive month manufacturing sector economic activity expanded, the trade group said.

WELLESLY, MA – The global market for biometrics was worth nearly $2 billion in 2006 and is expected to increase to $2.7 billion in 2007 and $7.1 billion by 2012, a CAGR of 21.3% over the next five years, according to a report from BCC Research.

Fingerprint biometrics will continue to be the main revenue contributor, worth $1.3 billion in 2007. This market is forecast to grow to $2.7 billion by 2012, a CAGR of 16.3% during the period.

The main reason for this growth is the decrease in price of fingerprint sensors, and government initiatives that rely heavily on fingerprint biometrics, BCC said.

The second largest segment is face recognition. This market will grow to $1.3 billion by 2012, from $459 million in 2007, a CAGR of 23.8%. Hand biometry will be the next largest segment in 2007 with market revenue of $243 million. By 2012, the market value for this segment will be $752.6 million, the firm reported.

The remaining biometric segments of iris scan, middleware, multimodality, voice recognition, signature verification and other emerging segments constituted $729 million in 2007. These segments are estimated to grow at a CAGR of 26% to $2.3 billion by 2012.

In terms of region, Europe currently leads the biometrics market because of higher user acceptance and the introduction of biometric passports in the majority of European countries. However, the highest potential lies in the Asian region where technologically developed countries such as South Korea and Japan, and growing countries such as China and India, will drive growth, BCC concludes.