Wow, I just found a whole bunch of wireless applications. Read the following article.
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From Electronics Buyer Guide
October 27, 1997, Issue: 1081
Section: Technology Focus
Wireless reaches beyond the phone --
OEMs and chip manufacturers find
opportunities in a wide variety of new and
old consumer and business applications
By Tom McHale
As cellular and PCS phones become part of daily life, hundreds
of OEMs are attracted to the handset business.
However, there is life beyond the handset. An array of markets
based on new and old wireless technologies offers substantial
growth opportunities for OEMs and silicon suppliers.
But it will take more than wireless expertise to cash in on those
opportunities. It will also take a solid grasp of the consumer
electronics business.
Logically, the pager business should long ago have fallen victim
to the increasing use of cell phones. But that has not happened.
The number of pager subscribers worldwide is rising at an
annual rate of close to 35%, according to Frank Lloyd, senior
vice president and general manager of Motorola Inc.'s
messaging systems products group, Fort Worth, Texas.
The drivers include explosive demand outside the United
States, new technology, and cost - paging remains the cheapest
form of wireless communications.
In 1996, China surpassed the United States as the nation with
the largest pager subscriber base. Market penetration in China
approached 33% last year, compared with 14% in the United
States and 27% in South Korea, according to Lloyd.
"The big market opportunities now for traditional on-the-belt
pagers lie in India, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, and Latin
America - an area that accounts for 40% of the world's
population but with a pager market penetration of only about
1%," he said.
The nature of the pager business is changing. In 1990,
businesses bought 80% of all pagers. This year, more than half
will be for personal use.
"There's also growth of paging technology beyond the belt,"
said Rhonda Dirvin, marketing director of Motorola's wireless
subscriber group. Paging technology will increasingly find new
applications that will allow companies to monitor vending
machines or read meters remotely, she said.
Mature, but growing
Cordless phones are another relatively mature wireless product
that still offers growth potential. Even as analog-phone
vendors are engaged in a bloody price-slashing battle to
control the shelves of WalMarts and K-Marts across the
United States, users are increasingly moving toward
higher-cost digital equipment that features higher voice
quality and increased functionality.
Vendors of cordless equipment in the U.S. market will see a
revenue crossover from analog to digital equipment by 1999,
according to a new report from Micrologic Research, Phoenix.
U.S. revenue from analog equipment will drop from $1.01
billion in 1997 to $690 million in 1999. By comparison,
revenue from U.S. sales of digital cordless equipment will rise
from $558 million in 1997 to $864 million in 1999.
Semiconductor revenue from analog phones in the United
States reached $216 million in 1996, and is expected to decline
to $202 million this year, according to the Micrologic report.
However, the value of chips for digital cordless equipment is
expected to climb to $86.5 million this year from $57.7 million
in 1996.
There are a variety of wireless options and standards.
Proponents of Europe's Digital European Cordless Telephony
(DECT) standard and Japan's Personal Handyphone System
(PHS) are pushing to make inroads in China and Southeast
Asia.
Micrologic Research expects shipments of DECT phones to
reach 1.7 million units this year and 10 million units by 2000.
PHS shipments will reach 4.8 million units this year. But unlike
the DECT standard, Japan's PHS phone shipments will peak
this year and drop to 3.2 million units by 2000, according to
Micrologic.
What's old is new
Some wireless technologies have been around for many years
but have not been available to the average consumer. GPS -
traditionally a high-cost niche aimed at military, aviation, and
marine navigation and survey applications - is becoming a
mass consumer market.
"Commercializing GPS technology will uncover untapped
potential," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies
Inc., a San Jose research firm. "With the press of a button, you
will be able to locate a lost child, find a car in a crowded
parking lot, find out where you are in Yosemite Park, or dial
911 from a cell phone knowing the operator can immediately
locate you."
These applications will soon become economically feasible as
low-cost GPS chip sets ramp to volume production this year.
But the first mass market for GPS chips will be in automobile
navigation.
In 1996, approximately 1.14 million automotive GPS
receiver-based navigation systems were shipped worldwide,
said Xavier Pucel, an analyst at Dataquest Inc., San Jose.
Average semiconductor content for each system was $216, and
the total available chip market for GPS in-car navigation
systems was $246 million last year.
By 2001, however, average chip content per GPS system will
drop to $148, but GPS receiver shipments will climb to more
than 11 million and fuel a $1.7 billion market in related
semiconductors, Pucel said.
Dataquest expects GPS in-car systems to quickly find use in
other applications - including CD-ROMs to access digital
maps, delivery of real-time traffic information, digital cell
phones to offer emergency and antitheft location, and
Internet-access systems.
A growing number of chip makers are already chasing the GPS
opportunity. Eindhoven, Netherlands-based Philips
Semiconductors has developed a chip set with GPS specialist
Ashtech Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.
Other GPS entrants include GEC Plessey Semiconductors,
Motorola, NEC Corp., Rockwell Semiconductor Systems,
SGS-Thomson Microelectronics N.V., Siemens
Semiconductors, SiRF Technology Inc., and Sony Corp.
A wireless technology long trapped in an expensive market
niche of proprietary equipment targeting corporate use is the
wireless LAN. But with the launch of the Wireless LAN
Alliance 18 months ago and the final acceptance of the IEEE
802.11 standard in July, it is expected that prices will come
down and the market will broaden, said Jeff Abramowitz,
president of the Wireless LAN Alliance, an association of 13
equipment and silicon vendors that has worked for
interoperability of wireless LAN equipment.
Wireless LAN equipment has already proven its worth in
inventory and warehousing applications in which handheld
gear passes data on to a company's network.
But there's also a growing role for wireless LAN equipment in
other markets, Abramowitz said. "Health care organizations
are starting to understand the productivity boost a doctor will
get by going into a patient's room and checking records or
prescribing medications via a wireless LAN-connected
notebook computer," he said.
In-Stat Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz., forecasts that sales of wireless
LAN equipment will increase from $300 million in 1997 to
more than $1 billion in 2000.
Much of that growth will come from abroad, Abramowitz said.
"A lot of that growth will come from Asia, where companies
are rushing to set up corporate networks but to date have
invested relatively little in wired LAN equipment," he said.
Such applications represent only a few of the future
opportunities for OEMs and chip manufacturers. The common
thread among them, though, is that success will depend on
more than wireless expertise. It will demand a solid grasp of
consumer marketing, a keen sense of timing, and the ability to
discern winning products and applications. |
