Wi-Fi-Enabled Devices to Exceed 1.9 Billion Units by 2014, Says In-Stat

The quest for connectivity continues to drive consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers to enable their products with Wi-Fi technology. The next 5 years will see an increase in the number of Wi-Fi-enabled devices, from over 500 million in 2009 to nearly 2 billion in 2014, according to In-Stat. Devices leading the pace of adoption include Blu-ray players/recorders, e-readers, and digital televisions.

"The reality of 802.11n-enabled devices being available is that many of the technical issues that constrained Wi-Fi adoption in video-centric CE devices in the past have been remedied,” says Frank Dickson, Vice President of Research. "As a result, we expect the adoption of Wi-Fi in the living room to accelerate. Across all 'digital living room' consumer electronics, which includes set top boxes, game consoles, and other such devices, Wi-Fi-enabled devices will exceed 200 million units by 2014."

Some of the research findings include:
• Mobile devices with Wi-Fi will still dominate shipments. In 2013, shipments of mobile phones with embedded Wi-Fi are projected to exceed three quarters of a billion units.
• E-readers Wi-Fi attach rates will increase from 3 percent in 2009 to 88 percent by 2014.
• 29 million digital picture frames will be shipped in 2014; 53 percent will be Wi-Fi-enabled.

Recent In-Stat research, "Wireless LAN Market Estimates and Forecast by Device,” provides global shipment numbers for all CE Devices along with the penetration of Wi-Fi into these devices.

www.in-stat.com