Demand for consumer tech to grow

This year, demand for consumer technology devices will increase, even in countries where growth has stagnated.

This is according to Paul Lee, global director at Deloitte Research, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, who argues that this is largely due to Moore's Law: a constant increase in value for money when purchasing consumer devices. According to Deloitte, record numbers of smartphones and tablets are likely to be sold this year.

Revealing Deloitte's annual technology, media and telecommunications predictions for 2012, Lee said that with the increasing demand for devices, multiple tablet ownership will become more commonplace. According to Deloitte's forecasts, 5% of tablet sales this year will be to people who already own at least one tablet.

Other trends that Deloitte forecast for the year include a surge in solid state storage, increased consumption of video by commuters with PVR devices, and the proliferation of sub-$100 smartphones. Noteworthy trends also include the use of near field technology (NFC) to perform a range of functions over and above payments, and the likely introduction of more data caps.

Deloitte predicts that the storage market will reach a turning point this year. The company argues that while the hard disk drive is not about to go out of use, there will be a dramatic increase in the adoption of solid state drive technology. The company forecasts that, by the end of the year, 90% of storage for smaller devices - such as MP3 players, smartphones and tablets - will be SSD. This compares to 20% in 2006.

According to Deloitte, in 2012, owners of full-screen smartphones and tablets are likely to use their devices as portable digital video recorders (DVRs) to catch up on TV viewing while commuting. The company says this will represent acceleration in the use of commuting time to watch programmes. Lee argues that this trend will be predominant among 17- to 24-year-olds.

Come year-end, 500 million smartphones with a retail price of $100 or less will be in use across the globe, according to Deloitte. Lee says consumers have a different perception as to what constitutes a smartphone compared to the industry definition. According to Deloitte, the $100 smartphone it refers to should be understood as analogous to the netbook, insomuch as it is a lower-priced, less-powerful version of the industry standard.

The company predicts that 300 million $100 smartphones will be sold this year, representing 20% of mobile phone shipments, and a third of all smartphone shipments.

Global shipments of NFC-enabled devices are expected to rise 100% to reach 200 million units, according to Deloitte. The company says that, next year, there may be as many as 300 million NFC-enabled smartphones, tablets and e-readers sold, compared to 50 million in 2011.

According to Lee, the use of NFC for payments is not likely to take off in the near future because consumers are not yet comfortable using their mobile phones as payment devices. However, he argues that the technology may be used to replace access cards. He says that because NFC-enabled devices can be tapped together to transfer information, these devices could also replace business cards.

According to Deloitte, more data caps will be introduced this year as Internet service providers rethink unlimited Internet packages. Lee says this is a result of a surge in Internet traffic. The company forecasts that, in developed countries, more ISPs will implement fixed-line data caps.

Lee argues that social media, video streaming, cloud computing and online gaming have led to a surge in demand on ISP's networks. According to Deloitte, in developed countries, as wireless providers moved away from uncapped data packages, users moved their data usage onto WiFi networks. He says that while this eased wireless congestion, fixed-line congestion increased.