Wifi Revolution

As network connectivity makes its entry into the living room, Wi-Fi is becoming a must-have feature across a range of devices, states a new report from In-Stat, titled Wi-Fi in Consumer Electronics: New Devices Discover Wi-Fi.

“Wi-Fi in Consumer Electronics” is a Microsoft (News - Alert) Excel pivot table report that provides annual market estimates and forecasts from 2009 to 2014 for consumer devices that utilize Wi-Fi. Forecasts include device TAM, Wi-Fi attach rate, Wi-Fi-enabled device shipments, non-Wi-Fi attach rates, and non-Wi-Fi device shipments for various markets

According to the report, Wi-Fi-enabled devices will exceed 200 million units by 2014 across all stationary consumer electronics, which includes set top boxes, game consoles, Blu-ray players, digital picture frames, among other devices. The report states that mobile handsets will remain the highest volume Wi-Fi-enabled device throughout the forecast period, stated In-Stat (News - Alert).

“Wi-Fi swept through the computing market, driven by the need to access and share broadband connectivity,” said Frank Dickson, In-Stat’s Vice President of Research. “That same consumer desire is now resulting in Wi-Fi adoption across the entire range of connected consumer electronics, driving significant Wi-Fi volumes. The ubiquitous adoption of Wi-Fi in consumer electronics is Wi-Fi’s manifest destiny.”

The research stated that internet Tablets with Wi-Fi, including Apple’s (News - Alert) iPad, will grow to nearly 50 million unit shipments by 2014. Also, the Wi-Fi device Total Available Market (TAM) will exceed 3 billion unit shipments by 2013, stated the report. From under 5 million units in 2009, shipments of digital televisions with Wi-Fi will grow more than ten-fold, to more than 60 million units in 2014.

Recently, the company released a report stating that SuperSpeed USB, which offers a ten-fold bandwidth improvement over high-speed USB, will grow to just under 30 percent of the USB interface technology market by 2014, according to In-Stat forecasts. The success of SuperSpeed USB will be limited initially, however. The report stated that more than 3 billion USB-enabled devices shipped in 2009; over 4 billion will ship in 2012.