According to ABI’s Bluetooth Market Research, the share of standalone Bluetooth IC will be about 40% by the end of 2014, down from 42% in 2013, and will remain constant through 2019. This steady IC demand will be maintained by both traditional and new growth devices like wearables, sports and fitness equipment, and smart home nodes. It has been noticed that the traditional devices such as Smartphone and PCs are either moving away from standalone solutions or shifting towards integrated platforms. On the other hand, Internet of Things (IoT) will support and gravitate towards standalone Bluetooth in many instances and will keep the steady share and grow with the overall market.
Bluetooth has become the standard in end user devices, which has been critical for the growth of the technology in the IoT. However, one of the biggest growth markets for standalone and combo Bluetooth ICs – smart home nodes – will also have many competing wireless connectivity technologies. The main disadvantage of Bluetooth will be its lack of mesh networking capabilities (aside from a proprietary implementation from CSR) which might put it at a disadvantage against 802.15.4-based solutions.
Handsets – smartphones and feature phones – are a dominant part of the Bluetooth chipset market and will remain so, but to a lesser degree throughout the forecast period. This is a big part of the reason why over 70% of Bluetooth ICs will be Smart Ready with a much smaller portion being Smart. These trends play into the hands of dominant vendors like Broadcom and Qualcomm, but still leave plenty of room for smaller Bluetooth chipset vendors.
