Over 204 Million WiFi Enabled Devices Sold In India In 2018: Reports

As many as 204.5 million WiFi-enabled consumer devices were sold in 2018, with mobile phones contributing close to 90 percent of the sales.

According to market research firm techARC, WiFi sale of enabled devices is expected to grow at 8 percent in 2019 with sales touching 221 million units, primarily led by smart and connected devices for home and office automation.

It said WiFi is increasingly contributing to enabling the wireless broadband connectivity in India. In 2018, 204.5 million WiFi-enabled consumer devices were sold with mobile phones contributing close to 90 percent of these sales.

Wi-Fi Enabled Devices Distribution In India

In terms of the active user base, the research firm estimates India is having close to 600 million consumer devices being used by users for communication, productivity, entertainment and other smart and connected use cases.

Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Chief Analyst at techARC said, "The future lies in wireless high-speed connectivity and WiFi offers one of the most reliable and affordable alternatives to it."

Wi-Fi Devises Contribution India

The firm also said that the devices being sold are conforming to the latest WiFi standards which allow higher throughput as well as better security management of data as well as the device.

In India, all WiFi-enabled devices sold in 2018 were based on WiFi 4 or WiFi 5 standards, the research firm pointed out that.

Outlook

The market will move towards WiFi 5 in 2019 and it's expected that the contribution of WiFi 5 devices will more than double by the year end.

Furthermore, India is estimated to sell more than 70 percent of WiFi-enabled devices based on WiFi 5 standard.

Smartphones will continue to lead the WiFi enabled devices by installed base. However, the growth will be seen more in Smart TVs including Streaming Devices as well as other Home automation / Smart Devices leveraging WiFi connectivity.

There is no doubt that WiFi enables a great opportunity for Make in India, especially on CPE and other devices which do not include complicated design and manufacturing capabilities like display, etc.

However, there is a need to implement standardization across WiFi devices to ensure QoS and Security.