Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Network entertainment applications are the stepping stone to a broader home Internet of Things (IoT) experience, even as consumers remain skeptical of the value proposition behind the home Internet of Things, wary of their cost and uncertain of their utility, according to a recent survey of U.S. consumers by International Data Corporation (www.idc.com).

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that 65% of U.S. broadband households with a security system plan to buy a smart home device in the next 12 months.

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.49 trillion in 2016, a decline of 0.5% over 2015 spending of $3.5 trillion, according to Gartner, Inc (www.gartner.com). This is down from last quarter’s forecast of 0.5%. The change in the forecast is mainly due to currency fluctuations, says the research group.

Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $334.8 billion in 2015, a 2.3% decline from 2014, according to final results by Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The combined revenue of the top 25 semiconductor vendors fell by 0.5% during 2015, according to the research group.

This was a better performance than the rest of the market, however, which saw a 6.9% revenue decline. The top 25 vendors accounted for 73.5% of the market, down slightly from 74% in 2014.

The wireless charging receiver market grew more than 160% in 2015 over the previous year, as annual global shipments reached 144 million units.

Integrated receivers hit mainstream devices, and refinements to system design and diversification for various applications and power ratings is now driving the development of the technology. Annual shipment volume is expected to top one billion units by 2020 and two billion by 2025, according to IHS (www.ihs.com), a source of critical information and insight.