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UPnP and DLNA Benefits for Home Networking

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) are two industry standards that enable consumer electronic (CE) devices to easily connect for data sharing, communications, and video entertainment applications. However, most mainstream consumers are unaware of the apparent benefits.

Despite the current low consumer awareness of these standards, shipments of DLNA-enabled devices will surpass a billion units by 2014, up from several hundred million in 2009, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

Over 85 million DLNA-enabled Blu-Ray players and recorders will ship in 2014. The fastest growth is expected in the photo-frames product category. While less than 1 million units shipped in 2009, In-Stat expects over 33 million DLNA-enabled digital photo frames to ship in 2014.

"Including DLNA in Windows 7 is a key market driver," says Norm Bogen, In-Stat analyst.

However, adoption of UPnP and DLNA is broader than just PCs. Handsets and digital televisions join PCs as the product segments that will see significant increases in total annual DLNA shipments over the next 5 years.

In-Stat's market study found the following:

- Handsets, PCs, and digital televisions will account for 74 percent of the DLNA market.

- Devices that act as digital home media servers -- including PCs, storage, routers, and gateways -- are the largest category of UPnP device shipments.

- Consumer awareness of DLNA home networking benefits are still very low. Only 6 percent of In-Stat survey respondents were very or somewhat familiar with the CE standard.

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