3G and 4G Product
Expansion
Mobile phone operators are now looking beyond the handset to fuel
further growth. They foresee a broad range of consumer electronics devices
as vehicles for 3G and 4G
wireless service access. The
new Strategy Analytics
Connected Home Device
Strategies report, “Beyond
the Handset—Wireless
Consumer Electronics: US Market Forecast,” identifies up
to 20 new device segments in which 3G and 4G wireless
technologies will be embedded, and which operators could
support with data and media services. The new range of
embedded CE devices will create a market of 100 million
installed devices for wireless operators in the US by 2014.
By the end of 2009, more than half of the 8. 4 million consumer electronics devices installed and enabled for 3G and
4G will be consumer notebook PCs. This entire device
population of 3G and 4G enabled products will nearly double to 16. 6 million in 2010, and continue to expand toward
101 million by 2014. According to Peter King, Director,
Consumer Home Device Strategies at Strategy Analytics,
“Beyond notebooks, Strategy Analytics expects other portable devices, such as Mobile Internet Devices and game
consoles to add 3G and 4G wireless network capabilities.”
“Wireless operators stand to benefit from future expansion in portable digital media device markets,” notes
David Mercer, Vice President, Digital Consumer Practice.
“They must now pay closer attention to developing innovative multi-device business models. The majority of today’s
wireless service plans are poorly adapted to the need for
unlimited data access across multiple consumer devices.”
This Strategy Analytics report also concludes that today’s
3G technologies will dominate the consumer electronics
device market in the near term. LTE and WiMAX will begin to have an impact in 2013 and beyond, as service availability expands and key price points are reached.
TriQuint and Win
Tighten Grip on
GaAs Foundry
Market
The latest Strategy Ana- lytics report, “Squeezing
Out the Competition: TriQuint Semiconductor and
Win Semiconductors Extend GaAs Foundry Leadership,” reports that Tri-
Quint Semiconductor and
Win Semiconductors continue to squeeze out the
competition, increasing
their collective share of the
GaAs (gallium arsenide) foundry market from 67 percent
in 2007 to 77 percent in 2008.
TriQuint held onto the top spot in 2008, benefiting from
commercial opportunities as well as engagements in the
US defense and aerospace industries. Win Semiconductors
is by far the largest pure-play GaAs foundry, pushing Tri-
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Quint hard for the number one spot in 2008, with only one
percentage point separating the two companies in overall
market share.
“Strategy Analytics estimates that the total market for
GaAs foundry grew 27 percent year-on-year in 2008 and
was worth $311 M,” noted Asif Anwar at Strategy Analytics. “The market for GaAs foundry services will continue to
grow as dual-sourcing and fabless strategies become more
prominent in the GaAs industry.”
“Start-up companies and research institutes targeting niche
and emerging markets may be finding that the tapeout costs
of ‘cheap silicon’ are too expensive in the current downturn,”
observed Stephen Entwistle, VP of the Strategic Technologies Practice. “This offers an additional opportunity for GaAs
foundries to leverage the lower costs and higher performance
capabilities offered by GaAs processes.”
Ultra Low Cost
Handset Surge in
China and India
Ultra low-cost handsets (ULCH)—thoseselling
for $35 or less—will determine the success of operators and vendors in emerging markets, according to
“ULCH—A Key to Success
for Vendors and Operators
in Emerging Markets,” a report from the Strategy Analytics Emerging Markets
Communications Strategies
service. More than half of the 300 million ULCH expected
to be sold in 2013 will go to emerging markets, with China
and India playing a crucial role in driving the growth.
Between 2007 and 2013, the ULCH share of global
handset sales will triple, as operators try to attract new
users. “Emerging markets have a huge untapped population,” says Rahul Gupta, Manager, Emerging Markets, and
author of the report. “But it’s a population with limited
spending power. A low-cost handset has to be part of the
strategy of any operator or handset vendor trying to get a
piece of this market.”
“The most important issue for operators seeking to benefit from low-cost handset development is to choose suppliers who have global scale in purchasing, product design
and brand,” added Chris Ambrosio, Executive Director of
the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice.
This report also points out that low-cost alone is not sufficient; the need to provide a limited set of rich applications, such as embedded gaming and FM radio, along with
the expansion of distribution and service networks into
rural areas, compounds the challenges that operators and
device vendors have in developing ULCH offerings.
CE Products and
Handsets Drive Wi-Fi
Chipset Growth
While mobile PCs and portable consumer
electronic (CE) devices
comprised the lion’s share
of Wi-Fi chipset shipments in 2008, mobile
