Accelerometer market is pointing up.
Shipments of accelerometers, compasses, gyroscopes and pressure sensors will quadruple by 2014, says iSuppli.
It believes the market will rise to 2.2 billion units in 2014, up from 435.9 million in 2009. Revenue will amount to slightly more than $1 billion in 2014, as compared with $316 million last eyar.
Motion sensors such as accelerometers and compasses have been popularised by iPhone and Android especially. They play a key role in gaming and navigation functions, and increasingly in augmented reality and context-awareness applications.
Nearly 20 per cent of the global shipments of accelerometers for cell phones went to China in 2009, iSuppli estimates, with the vast majority used in the Chinese gray handset market.
In 2014, accelerometers will account for 44 per cent of total motion sensor revenue for cell phones. By that time, 65 per cent of all phones will incorporate accelerometers, up from 2 per cent in 2007 and 28 per cent in 2009.
Meanwhile 19 percent of GPS phones used a compass in 2009, up from 4 per cent in 2008.
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Gyroscopes are expected to enter the first smartphones this summer. The main apps will utilise a gyroscope in combination with an accelerometer, followed by image stabilization and dead-reckoning for in-vehicle navigation.
From 2012, gyroscopes will start to be used for indoor navigation in combination with an accelerometer, compass and pressure sensor for floor accuracy. By 2014, the market for gyroscopes in cell phones is expected to amount to $190 million.
