Global DVD player revenues will fall for the first time ever this year, according to Strategy Analytics. Retail revenues in 2005 will fall by 1 percent to $19.8 billion, after peaking at $20.1 billion in 2004. Higher value DVD recorders are beginning to replace players, but this trend will not prevent a continued fall in overall revenues. "The global transition from play-only DVD players to DVD Recorders is well under way," says Peter King, Director of the Strategy Analytics Connected Home service. "High prices and product complexity have held back demand for DVD Recorders, but these factors are now diminishing." Worldwide sales of DVD recorders rose to 8.9 million units in 2004, generating $4.8 billion in retail revenues. DVD recorder sales will continue to grow rapidly, overtaking play-only devices in 2008 and reaching annual sales of 90.9 million units in 2010. The US market is trailing both Europe and Japan in adoption of DVD recorders, in part reflecting faster US adoption of set-top box DVRs. DVD recorders that are integrated with a hard disk drive dominate the Japanese market, and this trend is expected to spread to other regions. This feature enables time shifting as well as television program archiving in one device.
The industrial sector is on the eve of a wireless transformation, driven by an urgent demand for greater network capacity, reliability, and deterministic performance. Historically, manufacturers and mission-critical operations have relied on wired networks — favoring their predictability — because spectrum congestion in legacy 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands limited confidence in wireless for operational technology (OT) environments. However, with the introduction and rapid adoption of the 6GHz spectrum, compounded by significant advances in Wi-Fi standards, industrial facilities are now poised to embrace wireless LANs as the backbone for automation and digital innovation. Industrial WLAN Market Development Recent research from ABI Research forecasts that over 70 percent of industrial-grade wireless LAN access points (WLAN APs) shipped in 2030 will support the 6GHz band. This is a leap from 2 percent in 2023, highlighting a rapid and profound technological shift. The market for ruggedized indust...