20m wireless networked TVs to ship in 2011
July 22, 2009
As part of the continuing trend towards networked home entertainment, television sets will increasingly include wired or wireless connections to online content. A study from ABI Research forecasts that in 2011, some 20 million TVs offering wireless connectivity will be shipped worldwide. This segment is expected to show linear growth through the study's forecast horizon of 2014.
Network connectivity does already exist in high-end models, and networked TVs are already quite widespread in Japan. According to industry analyst Michael Inouye, "North America, Western Europe, and select Asian countries are seen as the next growth markets, and the 2009 holiday season and 2010 will be the watershed periods when vendors will see whether networked TV should trickle down to mainstream models and really take off there."