DeviceGuru

The Mobile Internet Devices market will grow at the “spectacular” rate of 167 percent compounded annually over the next five years, ABI Research reports.

MIDs are a new category of Internet-connected handhelds offering “always-on” Web browsing, photography and video, navigation, games, social networking, and voice communications.

ABI earlier predicted that the MID market would grow to shipments of 50 million units annually by 2013.

The market analyst firm expects the MID market’s impressive growth to be paralleled by the penetration of several wireless technologies that are integral to the devices’ functions: WiFi, Bluetooth, and eventually ultra-wideband (UWB).

“All Mobile Internet Devices will feature WiFi from the start,” says ABI Research senior analyst Douglas McEuen. “That is the essential form of wireless connectivity that no MID will be without. But in addition, ABI Research expects to see Bluetooth reach a 95 percent penetration rate by the end of 2008.”

While many MIDs will include voice capabilities, they are larger than mobile phones, and for convenience some users will carry a low-cost phone as well. However many consumers still want an all-in-one device, and the handset/headset configuration enabled by Bluetooth will meet their needs. That will be one of the main rationales for its early adoption in MIDs.

More enhanced forms of connectivity are in the pipeline, too. The first to reach the market will be Bluetooth-over-802.11, also known as AMP (Alternate MAC PHY). It involves a software addition that will allow the device’s Bluetooth circuits to piggyback on its much faster WiFi connection when it is necessary to transmit large amounts of data.

By 2011, ultra-wideband (UWB) will enter the mix. “Ultra-wideband offers an ‘on steroids’ version of Bluetooth,” explains McEuen. “Today it is just a wireless USB replacement, but the chips are getting smaller and more powerful and they are aiming for the portable device market. In a few years, it can be really useful in the MID market.”

ABI’s research brief, “Short-Range Wireless Technologies in Mobile Internet Devices,” examines market trends affecting the uptake of short-range wireless technologies in the MID market environment, including Bluetooth, WiFi, Bluetooth-over-802.11, and UWB.

[This research brief is copyright © 2008 ABI Research. All rights reserved. Reproduced by DeviceGuru.com with permission.]

For an interesting comparison of MIDs with two other small-form-factor device categories — UMPCs and nettops — read this DeviceGuru article:

The UMPC is dead; long live the netbook!