Including standalone Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, and ZigBee, as well as connectivity combo ICs and platform solutions, the number of standards-based wireless connectivity chips shipped will exceed five billion in 2013. Benefiting largely from the fast growing connectivity combo IC market, the popular supplier, Broadcom, will continue to dominate. Qualcomm (News - Alert) will also see growth due to continued uptake of its snapdragon platform in the Smartphone market.

“Increased diversification and building out product portfolios to include many wireless connectivity technologies is crucial to vendors’ current and future success,” commented Peter Cooney, wireless connectivity practice director.

He added that both Broadcom (News - Alert) and Qualcomm recently announced new NFC products. This will be an essential addition as this technology gains more market acceptance over the next five years.

As newer technologies such as Bluetooth Smart, WiGig, and NFC penetrate high volume applications, standalone wireless connectivity ICs will continue to be very important. However, in developing markets such as sports & fitness, automotive, and retail, newer technologies are increasingly adopted.

Particularly in high volume consumer markets such as laptops, tablets, and TVs, connectivity combos, i.e. those with two or more wireless connectivity technologies integrated will continue to see strong shipment and revenue growth. Enabling OEMs to achieve even faster time to market in very competitive areas such as low-end smartphones, platform solutions will see the strongest growth.

Cooney concluded by stating that some very important milestones will be achieved in the next few years in wireless connectivity market. Cumulative shipments of Bluetooth-enabled devices in 2013 will surpass 10 billion and Wi-Fi enabled devices will surpass 10 billion cumulative shipments in 2015.

This clearly shows the level of penetration into the electronics market that wireless connectivity technologies have achieved. Since wire free solutions will continue unabated, there is a lot more to come for the consumers’ appetite.