ABI Research is forecasting that Wi-Fi chipset vendors will ship one billion units in 2011 alone. By the end of the following year a cumulative five billion such chipsets will have shipped since the firm began tracking Wi-Fi chipsets in 2000. Wi-Fi is penetrating an ever-widening array of devices. Wi-Fi chipset shipments will total well over 100 million just for smartphones this year, and smartphones, netbooks, and a wide variety of consumer electronics devices such as portable media players, TVs, and cameras will become increasingly important market segments.
In the near term, says research practice director Philip Solis, “802.11n will be the dominant protocol shipped during 2010, and there will be no looking back as single stream 11n chipsets (those not employing MIMO technologies) increasingly replace 802.11g products.”http://www.abiresearch.com
