Wi-Fi Gains Traction in the Living Room, but Mobile Devices Still Dominate Shipments

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Wi-Fi’s large installed base in mobile PCs and home networks promises that it is likely to be a primary connectivity solution for living room-centric consumer electronics (CE) devices, reports In-Stat. Attach rates for Wi-Fi among game consoles are already approaching 80%. In-Stat expects DTV to be another high volume driver, reaching nearly 21 million units shipped with Wi-Fi by 2012.

While growth rates and penetration of Wi-Fi in the living room is growing, Wi-Fi is still dominated by the huge volume of mobile Wi-Fi devices. Beyond the already established notebook PC segment, Portable Media Players shipped with Wi-Fi will grow to well over 100 million units in 2011 and cellular/Wi-Fi handsets will pass 300 million units by 2012.

“Finalization of IEEE 802.11n will remedy some of the technical issue that constrained Wi-Fi adoption in video-centric CE devices,” says Victoria Fodale, In-Stat analyst. “We expect the adoption of Wi-Fi in the living room to accelerate. However, mobile device shipments will still out number stationary CE devices by nearly ten to one.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• By 2012, shipments of CE devices with Wi-Fi are expected to reach more than 938 million.
• According to In-Stat research, there were over 87 million wireless networks in the home in 2007.
• Residential gateways are expected to show the strongest growth among Wi-Fi home aggregator devices, which include SOHO/home routers, residential gateways, and standalone access points (APs).

Recent In-Stat research, Wi-Fi in Consumer Electronics: The Swiss Army Knife Technology (#IN0803980WS), covers the global market for CE devices with Wi-Fi.