Mobile-CE-device shipments to increase 55-fold
Mobile consumer-electronics devices should see shipments reach 58 million in 2014.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- EDN, February 4, 2010
ABI Research forecasts that shipments of mobile broadband-enabled CE (consumer electronics), including e-book readers, mobile digital cameras and camcorders, PMPs (personal media players), PNDs (personal navigation devices), and mobile gaming devices, will increase 55-fold between 2008 and 2014. Total shipments should reach 58 million in 2014.
“Consumers are snapping up connected PNDs and e-book readers in numbers and will continue to do so,” says Jeff Orr, a senior ABI research analyst. The consumption is not coming without questions. Several of these devices have for some time featured Wi-Fi. “When you embed a cellular or mobile broadband modem in a device,” says Orr, “it becomes tied to a particular operator's service billing. That [scenario] dramatically changes the device vendors' business model.”
Paying each time a consumer downloads content works for the e-book-reader supply chain. “In the case of a multiplayer game, questions arise,” says Orr. “Paying to download the game is straightforward, but, beyond that, what's the appropriate model?”
