ABI: Wi-Fi Chipset Revenue to Approach $3B in 2008
November 12, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
According to ABI Research, the market for Wi-Fi chipsets - primary components not including power amplifiers, low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and other external components - over the last several years has grown from just over $1 billion in 2006 to just over $2 billion in 2007.
This market is expected to deliver revenue of nearly $3 billion in 2008.
"We expect more than 1 billion chipsets to ship during 2011 alone, while the 2013 opportunity will be more than 1.6 billion units," said ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis.
On the device side, this is driven mainly by cellular handsets, consumer electronics, laptops, netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Analysts said the laptop market already has 100% attach rates, so much of the growth will come in the other device categories.
Analysts said much of this powerful growth will be in IEEE 802.11n chips (which are quickly being built into access points and laptops) and a little less quickly in mobile devices (which will frequently use a variant that does not include multiple input/multiple output - MIMO - connectivity), in order to preserve most of IEEE 802.11n's benefits, but at a lower cost and size.
Source: ABI Research.