...grew to 7.1 million worldwide in 2011, up from 6.4 million in the previous year. This relatively new breed of connected devices—neither classified as handsets, PCs, tablets nor traditional M2M devices—have strong growth potential. E-readers and PNDs are the most common consumer M2M devices already shipping in millions. Handheld gaming consoles, personal tracking devices and wellness devices are promising categories as well. In the next five years, shipments of consumer M2M devices are forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.8 percent to reach 37.9 million devices in 2016.

"Cellular connectivity gives the freedom of being connected everywhere and there are already 12.7 million consumer M2M devices in use worldwide" says Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. Consumer awareness, decreasing prices of modules and chipsets together with massive global deployments of high speed cellular networks such as LTE will have a positive impact on the market. "In a not too distant future, a substantial part of all content and services will be delivered through mobile channels. All companies, from device vendors, content owners to service providers, need to prepare for this change and have a well thought out mobile strategy in order to stay relevant", added Mr. Svanberg. You can download the report brochure, Consumer Electronics and Wireless M2M, at this direct link.