Analyst: connected CE doubled in 2010

The number of CE devices with cellular connectivity shipped in 2010 tipped 22 million, doubling over 11 million in 2009, according to a report from Berg Insight. Notebooks are the most common device category to come with cellular connectivity, with tablets, e-readers and PNDs growing fast growing.

The report says that in the next five years, shipments of connected CE devices will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 65.2 percent to reach 271 million in 2015.

"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," notes Johan Svanberg, senior analyst, Berg Insight. He adds that the Apple iPad caused the market for Internet tablets to take off and there were 17.1 million tablets sold worldwide in 2010 out of which 3.9 million have cellular connectivity. Heightened consumer awareness, decreasing prices of modules and chipsets together with massive global deployments of high speed cellular networks such as LTE will have a great positive impact on the market.

He adds, however, that "there is a lot of work to be done when it comes to wireless data subscriptions and a great deal of business innovation is needed in order to make embedded cellular connectivity a common feature in consumer devices."