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CE Embedded Wi-Fi Upside Growth Opportunity

Wireless LAN access at home is becoming a must-have feature across a range of consumer devices as network connectivity migrates into the living room, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

Digital televisions, Blu-ray players, and portable media players (PMPs) are among the leading consumer electronics (CE) categories -- in terms of total volume and growth.

Shipments of digital televisions with Wi-Fi will grow more than ten-fold -- from under 5 million units in 2009, to more than 60 million units in 2014. Driving this shift is both unit growth of the digital TVs, as well as Wi-Fi attach rates that increase from just 4 percent in 2009 to 33 percent in 2014.

Across all stationary consumer electronics, which includes set top boxes, game consoles, Blu-ray players, digital picture frames, among other devices, Wi-Fi-enabled devices will exceed 200 million units by 2014.

"Wi-Fi swept through the computing market, driven by the need to access and share broadband connectivity," says Frank Dickson, In-Stat Vice President of Research.

That same consumer desire is now resulting in Wi-Fi adoption across the entire range of connected consumer electronics, driving significant embedded Wi-Fi component volumes.

In-Stat's market study found the following:

- Mobile handsets will remain the highest volume Wi-Fi-enabled device throughout the forecast period.

- Internet Tablets with Wi-Fi, including the Apple iPad, will grow to nearly 50 million unit shipments by 2014.

- The Wi-Fi device Total Available Market (TAM) will exceed 3 billion unit shipments by 2013.

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