NEW YORK -- Shipments of mobile broadband-enabled consumer electronics are forecast to increase 55-fold between 2008 and 2014. This market – which includes eBook readers, mobile digital cameras and camcorders, personal media players (PMPs), personal navigation devices (PNDs), and mobile gaming devices – will see total shipments reach 58 million in 2014.
According to ABI Research senior analyst Jeff Orr, “While demand for products in the other categories is just starting to ramp up, consumers are already snapping up connected PNDs and eBook readers in numbers, and will continue to do so.”
Some of these devices have featured Wi-Fi for some time. But, says Orr, “When you embed a cellular or mobile broadband modem in a device, it becomes tied to a particular operator’s service billing. That changes the device vendors’ business model dramatically.”
ABI Research