Smartwatches are a hot commodity and Apple is reaping the benefits.

Smartphone shipments globally grew a whopping 56% to reach a record 18 million units in the last quarter of 2018, according to a new forecast by Strategy Analytics.

By market share, Apple is dominating all other watch makers, accounting for 51% of the entire smartwatch market.

Apple shipped 9 million smartwatches in the fourth quarter, more than 1 million more than the same period a year earlier, according to Strategy Analytics.

While the market share looks great for Apple, it actually isn’t as rosy as in the past. For example, at the end of 2017, Apple smartwatches accounted for 60% of the market, down to 51% now.

On the rise are Samsung, increasing from 5% market share a year ago to 13% now and Fitbit, up from 4% market share in 2017 to 13% now. The market share for Garmin stayed the same at 6%.

No matter the market share, smartwatches are the hot wearables. By 2023, Juniper Research estimates that 166 million smartwatches will be shipped.

That will make for a lot of connected wrists.

Digital experience and design agency Work & Co has just opened a new office in Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the great design hubs in Europe.

It’s the agency’s sixth location, in addition to New York, Portland, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belgrade.

“Scandinavia has always had a strong design heritage,” said Casey Sheehan, design partner at Work & Co. “The region also leads the way when it comes to work-life balance, a core value of our company since the start. Our strategy for opening offices has always been to go where the best talent prefers to live. Copenhagen is another of those hubs.”

The fact that a big new client—Ikea—is based just a hop, skip and jump away in Malmo, Sweden, probably weighed in favor of Copenhagen, assuming other locales were considered.

As the firm noted in a statement, “The Copenhagen presence also supports collaboration with a new client, Ikea.”

The agency is tasked with helping the retail giant improve engagement with customers across e-commerce, mobile shopping and in-store experiences.

Since opening in 2013, other European-based clients Work & Co has partnered with include Rapha, Mercedes-Benz, Canyon Bicycles, and LVMH.

The Copenhagen office will be led by general manager Brock Boddie.

The content monetization platform Piano has introduced a new service for content providers. It uses artificial intelligence to offer personalized content recommendations in newsletters and email, helping to drive publishers' business.

Called Piano ESP, the tool uses machine learning to analyze user behavior across multiple devices and services, such as email, mobile and desktop, to determine what articles a user would likely read.

In beta, Piano ESP works by looking at a user’s content streams to gauge their interests. For example, it could find that a user prefers to check work email and reads political news from Bloomberg on mobile during a morning commute.

Piano ESP would track these trends to automatically curate and email out political news from Bloomberg to the user’s phone at 8 a.m.

"Our ultimate goal is to create value for our clients by getting the right content in front of the right people at the right time, driving subscriptions and shedding light on users' journey," stated Trevor Kaufman, Piano CEO. "Our objective is to provide a clear, all-in-one interface that delivers messages, manages effectiveness, tracks impact and generates revenue."

Piano believes this can drive business for content providers and publishers. Results in beta showed a 50% increase in revenue, according to the company.

Average reported results include a 150% increase in open rate, a 120% increase in page views and 80% longer visit durations.

Piano ESP has been in beta since the company acquired content marketing cloud Newzmate in November. Since then, the “company has seen strong customer growth and revenue around the product.”

Piano announced last month it raised $22 million in a Series B funding round, led by Updata Partners.

Piano offers a suite of tools for content providers, such as Piano VX, a subscription commerce engine; Piano Composer, a customer experience toolkit; and Piano ID, a user-management system.

Piano powers over 200,000 digital media subscriptions. Its clients include 1,300+ media brands, including Business Insider, Bloomberg, Oath, Gatehouse Media, The Economist, Hearst, Bonnier and Conde Nast.

New Balance in the UK is expanding the brand's "Everybody's Race" campaign with an experiential component: a pub with a twist. The only way to pay for beer is with accumulated running miles. 

The Runaway Pub, developed by VMLY&R, builds on the post-training ritual in the UK of visiting a pub. The Runaway Pub, located in the heart of London on Charing Cross road, comes with a fully stocked bar and dartboard upstairs, while downstairs, runners will find a gym and weights area to stretch and work out, in addition to changing rooms and lockers.

Runners’ miles are recorded through Strava, then are tallied and converted to currency using a “Runaway Card” that can be added to Apple and Google Wallet Passes.

Runners use these miles – the only currency accepted at the pub -- to pay for pints via their mobile wallet. The number of miles needed for a pint is determined by four challenges, with each challenge centered around marathon training milestones. 

The broader “Everybody’s Race” campaign is focused on supporting marathon runners throughout their training in the 120 days leading up to the Virgin Money London Marathon on April 28.

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Apple Search Ads has added Bidalgo, a mobile ad automation platform, to a select group of partners that can manage campaigns running in the company’s app store.

The search ads appear at the top of the Apple App Store query page. When someone searches on the keyword “nordstrom,” for example, to download the app they might see an ad for Sephora.

Apple’s other campaign measurement partner, Kenshoo, which also supports Bing and Google search ads, signed on in September 2018.

The two companies now support the 70% of app store visitors who use search to find apps. Some 65% of downloads occur directly after a search on the App Store, and 50% of search ads average conversion rate, according to Apple Store data in 2018.

Bidalgo recently released a guide to search ads, helping app advertisers gain practical campaign tips for the best performance. The company also has partnerships with Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat and Pinterest to help advertisers manage ads in apps.

And while managing ads running in the app store seems to run smoothly, Apple continues to struggle with companies trying to game the system.

Apple deleted apps from Appsverse, Dington, TextMe and others after finding these companies reportedly posted duplicate apps, which is against company policy.

Some clone the apps to drive more search traffic. TechCrunch notes cloning isn’t focused just on VoIP companies. JPEG Labs, for example, has four apps that allow people to print photos at CVS and Walgreens stores.

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