The worldwide market for Wi-Fi infrastructure and adapters surpassed $1.0 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time in Q4 2003, according to In-Stat/MDR. Additionally, the Wi-Fi client market is seeing a 66.2 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate), and is shifting from removable add-on cards to embedded Mini-PCI cards.

In-Stat/MDR's recently released report, “Wi-Fi Inside: The Embedded Wi-Fi Paradigm,” also suggests:

• There has been a significant growth in Wi-Fi-enabled notebook PCs with 55.0 percent of the 32.1 million notebook PCs shipped in 2003 containing embedded Wi-Fi adapters.
  
• PC Cards held a “quickly eroding” 38.8 percent market share in 2003 after dominating the market with a 58.3 percent market share in 2002.
  
• The Wi-Fi Mini PCI card represented 49.1 percent of the Wi-Fi adapters shipped and accounted for most of the Wi-Fi enabled notebooks and tablet PCs in 2003. The Mini PCI form-factor is expected to capture an increasing percentage of the total Wi-Fi adapter market over the next five years.
  
• The market for embedded Wi-Fi clients including mobile PCs, PDAs and phones will continue to grow at 66.2 CAGR, reaching 226.0 million units shipped in 2008.

The report contains analysis and forecasts of the worldwide Wi-Fi market from 2003-2008 and also includes analysis of products and strategies of major vendors. Further details on the report are available here.

 
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