Wireless Chipsets Market To Rocket To $20.4 Billion

MarketsandMarkets has released a new report, "Wireless Communication Chipsets (Wi-Fi/WLAN, Wireless Display/Video (HD & WHDI), Mobile WiMAX & LTE (4G), ZigBee, 802.11, 802.15.4 & 802.16) Market in Consumer Electronics & Automation Applications, Global Forecast & Analysis (2012 - 2017)."

Wireless networks and related wireless technologies that enable those wireless connectivity are broadly categorised into Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN).

The overall market size for Wi-Fi chipsets was $2.65 billion in 2010, which phenomenally increased to $4.6 billion by 2011. This was due to robust demand and deployment of Wi-Fi chipsets in all digital consumer electronics, the major share of revenue contributed by smartphones and tablet PCs.

With increasing consumer adoption of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones and trend of rapid integration of Wi-Fi in smartphones by the semiconductor industry from the supply side, the percentage share of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones has increased at a tremendous rate over the past two years.

It is expected to cross 95 percent by 2017. This is also expected for tablet PCs. This was one of the major reasons for robust growth of Wi-Fi chipsets from 2010 to 2011.

On other fronts of WLAN, the concept of Wireless Display/Video with wireless transfer and access of high bit-rate data volumes emerged over the past few years commercially. They provide a better alternative to faster, more efficient, clearer and uncompressed way of video and display transfer wirelessly between consumer electronic devices.

Although Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) was the pioneer in this field in 2007, the success of WHDI compatible chipsets was short-lived in spite of standardisation of WHDI technology and establishment of WHDI forum.

The market witnessed birth, rapid success and fierce competition among several novel proprietary technologies such as WirelessHD technology by Silicon Image, Inc. (U.S.), WiDi technology by Intel Corporation (U.S.) and Wi-Fi Display technology by Qualcomm, Inc. (U.S.).

The market's growth curve took an upward turn and the overall market for Wireless Display/Video chipsets (considering all types of technology) stood at $800 million in 2011. This is expected to grow to more than $1 billion by end of 2012. With huge scope for penetration into smartphones, smart TVs, ultra-books and tablet PCs, this market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 28.03% from 2012 to 2017.

In WMAN, focusing specifically on two major technologies, Mobile WiMAX and Mobile LTE (the 4G Cellular Data technologies), Mobile WiMAX chipsets had their commercial birth in 2007 and the market entered into growth-phase by 2010.

However, before the market could take off, with the commercial launch of Mobile LTE on a minor scale in 2011, Mobile WiMAX faced stiff competition from Mobile LTE, and the preference of the broadband industry shifted to LTE slowly in 2011.

Since most economies were still behind on the evolution from 3G and 3.5G and had not yet upgraded to WiMAX, by 2012, the preference of the higher-performance and data-speeds offering Mobile LTE was most optimal for upgrade from previous-generation cellular broadband technologies. This gave a boost to the Mobile LTE chipsets market. With several smartphones creating robust demand for Mobile LTE chipsets such as Apple's iPhone5 launched in Q4 this year, 2012 is expected to be the break-out year for Mobile LTE.

The Mobile WiMAX chipsets market, recorded its highest revenue in 2011, reaching $230 million in 2011, but the revenue are expected to decrease slightly by end of 2012, to $218 million.

The market is expected to slowly decline over the coming years, with a complete sweep of the entire revenue potential by Mobile LTE. Overall, combining the revenue of Mobile WiMAX and Mobile LTE to view the overall 4G chipsets market size which is more than $300 million currently is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR of 37.2% from 2012 to 2017.

Finally, on the WPAN front, the ZigBee chipsets market has witnessed good growth over the past two years, though ZigBee technology has been present in the market for roughly seven years. In 2009, the concept of RF4CE (Radio Frequency for Consumer Electronics) was merged with the ZigBee technology, and ZigBee technology which found use in TV remote controls for the past half-decade till 2010, found several new applications for penetration, creating healthy demand, also owing to development of new versions in ZigBee technology suitable for automation applications such as ZigBee PRO and ZigBee IP. The ZigBee chipsets market is expected to grow at an explosive CAGR of 42.17% from 2012 to 2017, due to rapid deployment of ZigBee technology in Smart Energy, Home Automation and Building Automation applications.

In total, combining all the revenue mentioned above, the overall wireless communication chipsets market in consumer electronics and automation applications (considered for this research study) stands at the total revenue size crossing $5.5 billion in 2011. It is expected to grow at a solid CAGR of 20.01 percent from 2012 to 2017 primarily due to steady revenue streams for all the four fast growing wireless chipset groups in consumer applications creating huge demand such as smartphones, laptops, netbooks, notebooks, ultra-book, tablets, all-in-one PCs, TVs and related display systems and set-top boxes.

Considering future scenarios, it is expected that several smartphones will start incorporating Mobile LTE, further making the mobile LTE chipsets market in the semiconductor industry explode in 2013, later paving the way for rapid penetration of the LTE technology into all other consumer electronics.

Overall, the CAGR for Mobile LTE chipsets market, for the period of 2012 to 2017, is calculated to be 44.30%, expecting the overall revenue to cross $5.7 billion, by end of 2017. In total, combining the revenue of Mobile WiMAX and LTE market, the overall 4G cellular chipset (not considering the complete SoC, only the wireless chipset) revenue is expected to be slightly more than $1 billion by end of 2012, for all application sectors. This number is expected to reach approximately $5.8 billion by end of 2017.

In total, combining the revenue of the five major types of wireless chipsets in the research study's scope (Wi-Fi, Wireless Display/Video, Mobile WiMAX, Mobile LTE and ZigBee) the overall wireless communication chipset market revenue in consumer electronics & automation applications is expected to reach $20.4 billion. This will represent a CAGR of more than of 20 percent from 2012 to 2017. On the shipments front, the overall shipments are expected to reach 4.86 billion units by 2017, at a CAGR more than 29 percent from 2012 to 2017 (a higher CAGR than that of revenues, due to expected reduction in prices of chipsets).