A new research report from Berg Insight says the number of consumer electronics devices with embedded cellular connectivity (excluding mobile phones) grew to 22 million in 2010. That’s double the 11 million mobile-enabled devices shipped worldwide in the previous year.
The most common mobile-enabled device category is still notebooks, although the tablet, e-reader and navigation device categories are growing quickly. Berg Insight says 17.1 million tablets were sold worldwide in 2010, of which 3.9 million have cellular connectivity. Shipments of ‘connected’ consumer electronics devices are forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 65.2% in the next five years, reaching 271 million in 2015.
Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight, said “The sheer availability of affordable devices with embedded connectivity has exploded during the last year with substantial price reductions on connected personal navigation devices and popular e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook.”