Smartphones and tablet computers may continue to dominate the tech world next year but the big money may be harvested from one lesser known segment of the industry - data analytics.

Analytics for one, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), gives companies clear picture on how to utilise their advertising funds, which run to billions of dollars as the current year.

"Analytics is really the core of what will be happening in everything from medical research to advertising," freelance tech analyst Rob Enderle was reported by AFP as saying on a report Friday last week.

The services' energy is very much focused on understanding emerging trends and patterns that influence customers' behaviours in determining their choice of products, Enderle said.

"Big analytics toward the end of the year became the big term and into next year it will be the big term," Enderle told AFP.

Enderle believes that data analytics will play crucial roles in various fields where the power of computer-aided analysis would be most welcome and useful - from advertising, medical breakthroughs and political exercises.

"Applied to elections it could be the difference between winners and losers," Enderle pointed out while stressing that more global breakthroughs benefitting many will be credited to works completed in aid of analytics.

One solid example of analytics' helpful work, AFP wrote, is the New York company Collective(i), which specialises in providing up-to-the-minute data analysis of what a particular firm's customers are looking for.

"We are bringing analytics and business intelligence to the masses ... others deliver the facts, we deliver the whys," Collective(i) chief executive Stephen Messer described to AFP the basic services that his firm delivers to clients.

Even on its infancy stage, Messer added that analysis provided by Collective(i) creates a platform for companies to proactively design their products and services that were completely attuned to customers wants and needs.

"What it means is that companies are listening to their customers again and not just pitching you products you don't want," Messer stressed.

Collective(i), he explained, lays out to its clients the reasons behind the sales figures and graphs, enabling these companies to tweak their marketing approach or even adjust their product designs and formula to lure more customers and generate more sales.