Wi-Fi chip sales defy the downturn
Published: 12 January, 2009
READ MORE: Wi-Fi | Semiconductor
The Wi-Fi Alliance has come out with a defiantly cheerful outlook for 2009, despite the consumer downturn, claiming that growth in WLan chipsets was 26% last year, and will continue, driven primarily by consumer and entertainment products.
In 2008, Wi-Fi chipsets were up 26% year-on-year to 387m, according to figures commissioned by the Alliance from research firm In-Stat. The healthy performance came from a mixture of consumer and enterprise sectors, especially those moving towards the new 802.11n high speed standard. Particular stars of the show were Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, netbooks and media devices.
In particular, Wi-Fi is already tapping into the trend that smartphone makers like Palm see as their savior - the combination of entertainment and business capabilities into a single device that may carry fairly high margins, but is seen by the user as economical because they no longer need two or more separate mobile gadgets. Dual-mode smartphones grew twice as fast as the high end handset category as a whole.
The Alliance expects this trend to continue throughout the recession. "We were definitely seeing a shift ... that products are converging around entertainment and productivity in a single device," said Kelly Davis-Felner, the Alliance's marketing director, claiming that 85% of people questioned in a recent survey said they planned to purchase technology in 2009 mainly for entertainment, more than work. Only 25% planned to focus on low cost or discounted products. "The economy is having a little of an impact, but not the rainy day scenario we're all worried about happening," Davis-Felner continued cheerfully.
This year, In-Stat expects the most resilient Wi-Fi products to be dual-mode handsets, portable consumer electronic devices, mobile PCs and fixed products for fast, multimedia home networking. Just about all handheld gaming devices shipped in 2009 will have Wi-Fi as well.
The Alliance has now certified over 500 products complying with the draft 802.11n standard and expects to align its program with a final standard when that is ratified next year.
Another trend the Alliance thinks will start to become significant from this year is the use of Wi-Fi for device-to-device connectivity and syncing on the fly. Proprietary implementations of this capability are entering the market now and the industry body is working to develop a standard approach, which will come to market in 2010.
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