ABI Research

"For the automotive industry the emergence of the IoT constitutes a disruptive and transformative environment characterized by value chain and business model upheaval and a ‘collaborate or die’ ecosystem friction reality prompting it to redefine and reinvent itself in order to capitalize on the huge opportunities in the new IoT economy. The absorption of the automotive industry in the wider IoT is driven by new connected car use cases such as EVs as a mobile grid and vehicles used as delivery locations. As this IoT revolution unfolds, automotive innovation and value creation will be shifting to the boundaries with other verticals such as home automation, smart grids, smart cities, healthcare and retail,” says ABI Research VP and practice director Dominique Bonte. 

Annual wireless connectivity chipset shipments across Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, GPS, and ZigBee show no sign of slowing down, reaching almost nine billion annual shipments in 2019, finds ABI Research. Had it not been for combo chipsets and integrated platforms the number of chipsets shipped would have been even higher. Cumulative chipset shipments from 2010 through 2014 will have reached over 21 billion; during the next five years from 2015 to 2019, cumulative shipments will almost double to over 39 billion. “That is over 60 billion wireless connectivity chipsets that will have shipped over the ten year span from 2010 to 2019, driven by the emergence of new device types,” said research director Philip Solis. “There is constant change in the wireless connectivity space across wireless connectivity technologies, versions of technologies, and levels of integration at the same time.”

For the first quarter of 2014, vendors reported revenue affected by certain component shortages which are forecast to lift towards the end of the second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter this year.

By the end of 2013, global LTE-related cellular subscriptions surpassed 230.9 million, 3.3 percrent of mobile subs, and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 36.6 perent between 2014 and 2019, exceeding 2 billion. The extensive presence of LTE networks is also stimulating the deployment of VoLTE. By the end of 2014, there are expected to be 59.6 million VoLTE subscriptions in place, and it is expected that nearly 56 percent of LTE-related cellular subscriptions will be using VoLTE services by the end of 2019.

With over 2.6 billion chipsets expected to ship during 2014, Wi-Fi is currently the most ubiquitous wireless connectivity technology for Internet access. As the technology continues to adapt and expand with new protocols such as 802.11ac, 802.11ax, 802.11ad (WiGig), and Wi-Fi Direct, nearly 18 billion more chips will ship cumulatively from 2015 to 2019.

As worldwide Mobile Broadband Traffic heads toward 200 Exabytes per year, operators deploy 4G LTE, LTE-A, plead for spectrum, and try to manage usage through policy and pricing.  The physics of mobile broadband radio do not follow Moore’s Law of digital scaling, so leading-edge operators are ready to address the physical realities of small cells.  Nevertheless, the question remains; why not deploy carrier grade Wi-Fi with the small cells?

The worldwide Wi-Fi customer premises equipment market including access points, routers and gateways shipments surpassed 139.1 million in 2013. “802.11ac access point adoption is starting to gain market share, representing 8% of the total consumer access point market in 2013,” says Jake Saunders, VP and practice director at ABI Research.

Worldwide LTE-related subscriptions reached 229.7 million in 2013, and will continually grow at a CAGR of 43.6% between 2013 and 2019, to exceed 2 billion. By the end of 2013, LTE-TDD subscribers accounted for 5% of the LTE market, while 94.2% of the LTE market was taken up by LTE-FDD.

The total Bluetooth IC market (including stand alone and combo ICs) is expected to reach $4.3 billion in 2012 — an increase of 21% on 2011. Revenues are forecast to grow at a compound growth rate of over 20% to reach almost $12 billion by 2017.

The total market for standards-based wireless connectivity chipsets is expected to exceed $10 billion in 2012, this includes both standalone and combo chipsets that use Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, UWB, and ZigBee. “The market continues to develop with technologies - particularly Bluetooth and Wi-Fi - squaring up for a fight to be the dominant standard,” commented Peter Cooney, wireless connectivity practice director.