Articles by ABI Research

ZigBee enabled device shipments will grow to almost 400 million units per annum in 2018 driven by adoption of the technology by service providers to enable sales of smart home services.

Apple’s acquisition of WiFiSLAM has brought smartphone indoor location technologies to the fore. With over 1 billion new smartphones forecast to utilize indoor location technologies in 2018, there are still significant opportunities for companies with the right technologies and strategies.

There are many companies that contribute to 3GPP technologies, including WCDMA/HSPA, LTE, and the EPC; however, only a handful of companies stand out across the board. ABI Research looked at the number of chairmanships, rapporteurships, overall contributions, approved contributions, and discussion papers for 3GPP standards. This was done for RAN1, RAN2, RAN3, RAN4, RAN5, SA1, SA2, SA3, SA4, SA5, CT1, CT3, and CT4 from 2009 through 2012.

By 2018, ABI Research expects annual home automation device shipments to exceed 351 million, growing at a CAGR of 78 percent. ZigBee dominated IEEE 802.15.4 and claimed the top share of node shipments at 4.5 million, narrowly beating out proprietary protocol offerings.

Low cost smartphones, defined as smartphones with a wholesale ASP below $200, are increasingly appearing in OEM and operator portfolios in both emerging and developed markets. The low hanging fruit for low cost smartphones is to drive smartphone adoption in emerging markets where handset subsidization and disposable income are scarce.  Market intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts low cost smartphone shipments to grow from 238 million in 2013 to 758 million by 2018, driven by the low penetration of smartphones and large subscriber bases found in BRIC countries.

Worldwide consumer Wi-Fi customer premises equipment (CPE) shipments surpassed 43.3 million at the end of 1Q-2013; a 16.8 percent increase from 4Q-2012.  “802.11n device shipments still dominate the market, accounting for more than two thirds of total device shipments; however, 802.11ac access point adoption is starting to gain traction,” says Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of forecasting.

ABI Research estimates that the installed base of Bluetooth-enabled devices alone reached 3.5 billion in 2012 and is forecast to grow to almost 10 billion by 2018—this doesn’t take into account many other technologies such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee, and cellular.

Yota launched the first LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network in Russia last October; however, with the first compatible handset, SK Telecom was the earliest to make the technology commercially available in June 2013. Within two weeks, the South Korean operator has already claimed over 150,000 subscriptions, roughly 0.6% of its total.

According to a new report by ABI Research, annual shipments of 802.15.4-enabled devices are forecast to grow more than 5X from 2012 to 2018, with a CAGR of over 30%. ZigBee continues to be the primary driver toward standardization and interoperability and will see further strong growth across many markets, accounting for almost 80% of total 802.15.4-enabled device shipments in 2018.

In an update to ABI Research’s M2M Market Data, cellular M2M connections are set to reach over 450 million by 2018.  Europe dragged down worldwide connection growth in 2011 and 2012 to the high teens but with improving world economics connection growth will accelerate to a CAGR of 26 percent through 2018.