‘Connected’ CE Sales Poised to Explode, Driven by Consumer Demand

Annual unit sales of "connected" consumer electronics products is expected to nearly double by 2013, according to the Parks Associates.

The category, which allows users to access and display photos and music on home networks and retrieve online contents like games and videos, includes networked TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, home media servers and set-top boxes.

More than 100 million units of these connected products will be sold annually by 2013, according to a Parks report. Compare that to an estimated 57million units that will be sold in 2009.

The stars are aligning for products that allow consumers to remain connected and multi-task, according to Kurt Scherf, vice president, principal analyst, Parks Associates.

"People want whole-home access to their personal content, which will increase the storage needs of the average U.S. household to a terabyte. At the same time, consumers are very interested in bringing Internet content to the television. For devices to offer a compelling value proposition, they will have to feature connectivity within the home network and to the services coming to the home."

Demand for connected products creates complex challenges for manufacturers, Scherf adds.

"Connected CE use cases will include access to many different services and types of content, including video, gaming, user-generated content, music, social networks, and customer care. Interface design will be an important area as users will need easy access to their content and services."