ABI Research says 2013 will see NFC leaving its ‘trial phase’, with 285 million NFC-enabled devices expected to be shipped worldwide. That figure will have increased almost seven-fold by 2017, when a total of 1.95 billion NFC devices are forecast to be shipped. Most of these will be mobile handsets although 395 million will be Consumer Electronics devices including media tablets, PC accessories and gaming consoles.
The NFC market is developing, according to ABI Research, with NFC now being seen as offering more than payments. The technology is currently being used for authentication, loyalty cards, tickets and ‘reading’ information from a wide variety of sources.
Phil Sealy, research analyst at ABI Research, said “2012 is the first time that ABI Research has raised forecasts for NFC-enabled handsets, up from 80 million units to 102 million for year-end 2012. Nine out of the top ten OEMs now have NFC-enabled handsets commercially available, with most housing an embedded secure element solution. We expect handset shipments to more than double next year with NFC inclusion likely to become a default technology integrated into flagship handsets.”