IHS iSuppli

Shipments of cellphones equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) will expand by nearly a factor of 10 from 2012 to 2017, reaching 1.2 billion units as the majority of smartphone makers are increasingly adopting the wireless communications and payment technology in their products as a de facto standard.

The use of Wi-Fi functionality in small-cell base stations will be a game changer for cellphone service providers, easing heavily congested data pipes while linking together billions of devices into a single network architecture, according to the IHS iSuppli Mobile & Wireless Communications Service at information and analytics provider IHS.

China-based manufacturers of cellphones and tablets in 2012 more than doubled their share of purchases of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) motion sensors, reflecting the rising prominence of the companies in the global market, according to an IHS iSuppli MEMS Topical Report from information and analytics provider IHS.