The Bluetooth market will grow steadily in the future, and the Bluetooth SIG will continue to make efforts

On April 15, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) released the "Latest Bluetooth Market Information in 2021". Mr. Chuck Sabin, Senior Market Development Director of the Bluetooth SIG, was interviewed by reporters and interpreted the latest information in the Bluetooth market and the development direction of Bluetooth technology.

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Chuck Sabin, Senior Director of Market Development, Bluetooth SIG

The Bluetooth market will continue to grow in the next five years  

The report predicts that the growth rate of the Bluetooth market has slowed down during the epidemic, but will resume growth in 2021. Due to the increase in consumer health awareness, the markets for wearable devices and smart homes have performed well. In addition, markets such as asset tracking, location services, and commercial connected lighting will achieve long-term growth as their advantages become more prominent.

Chuck Sabin said that the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the overall market forecast growth by one year, but the strong market demand for connectivity and positioning solutions in the next five years will accelerate the growth of global Bluetooth device shipments. It is expected that the compound annual growth rate of Bluetooth device shipments will reach 10% from 2021 to 2025. By 2025, the annual shipment of Bluetooth devices will reach 6.4 billion, of which peripheral devices will account for 70% of Bluetooth device shipments. This continued growth proves the universality and flexibility of Bluetooth technology in the market.

Chuck Sabin emphasized that the shipment volume of low-power Bluetooth single-mode devices is expected to increase by more than 3 times in the next five years, and low-power Bluetooth will continue to have a decisive impact on the market. It is expected that by 2025, 96% of Bluetooth devices will include low-power Bluetooth. From Bluetooth direction finding to LE Audio, low-power Bluetooth can support a variety of new functions, so it is applied to all platform devices, and the number of devices supported by classic Bluetooth has also reached a peak. Therefore, 100% of major new platform devices in the future will support classic Bluetooth and low-power Bluetooth dual-mode.

Four major areas drive the development of Bluetooth technology

Bluetooth technology provides full-stack solutions for specific purposes and continues to meet the growing demand for wireless connectivity. Bluetooth technology has expanded from its initial audio transmission to low-power data transmission. Today, Bluetooth technology can meet the needs of location services and reliable large-scale device network solutions. Bluetooth technology is divided into four major solution areas: audio transmission, data transmission, location services and device networks.

According to the report, audio transmission is the solution area with the largest shipment volume. So far, the annual shipment volume of Bluetooth audio transmission devices has reached 1.1 billion units, and by 2025, the annual shipment volume will reach 1.7 billion units. Chuck Sabin said that in 2020, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, smartphone sales declined in the short term, causing the sales of audio accessories including mobile speakers and headphones to decline in the short term. However, Bluetooth headsets still lead the shipment volume of the audio transmission category, accounting for almost half of the shipment volume of all audio transmission devices. In addition, with the continued growth in demand for Bluetooth speakers, by 2025, the shipment volume of Bluetooth speakers will increase by 1.5 times, reaching 180 million units per year.

Although affected by the pandemic from 2019 to 2020, the data transmission sector still maintained very good growth. By 2025, the annual shipments of Bluetooth data transmission equipment will increase by 1.7 times. Chuck Sabin said that there are two important driving factors for maintaining a good growth trend: first, people's increased attention to medical, health and safety treatment has promoted the growth of wearable devices and medical devices; second, due to the impact of the pandemic, remote work has become the mainstream office mode, and the sales of personal computer accessories have shown an upward trend. Chuck Sabin also emphasized that the adoption of Bluetooth by IoT devices exceeds that of any other technology, and 13 billion Bluetooth IoT devices will be put into use in 2021.

The impact of the epidemic has caused the deployment of location services to slow down by 25% compared to the pre-epidemic expectations in 2020. However, people's increased awareness of asset management and safe resumption of work and production has increased their business demand for location services. It is expected that the growth rate will return to the pre-epidemic level throughout 2021, and the deployment volume will rise to 550,000 by 2025. "Bluetooth location services will continue to grow in the next five years, and asset tracking and indoor navigation will continue to be strong market drivers." Chuck Sabin said.

Today, device networks have become the fastest growing area of ​​Bluetooth solutions. As people spend more time at home, they pay more attention to the intelligence and convenience of their homes, which drives the growth of device network solutions such as smart homes and smart lighting. Chuck Sabin said that commercial interconnected lighting systems will be an important driving force for development in the next five years. Because in addition to the benefits of energy costs and energy saving brought by advanced lighting control, benefits and returns on investment beyond lighting are also emerging.

Chuck Sabin emphasized that Bluetooth technology played a role in three major areas during the epidemic. First, Bluetooth promoted the development of applications related to social distance control; second, Bluetooth location services helped achieve safe resumption of work and production during the epidemic; third, Bluetooth was also used in various healthcare solutions.

Chuck Sabin said that since 2020, the Bluetooth Technology Alliance and the DALI Alliance have started a good collaboration to develop the Bluetooth-DALI gateway specification to ensure that all commercial connected lighting system components can understand each other and achieve interoperability smoothly, so that all stakeholders in the value chain, from manufacturers to end users, can benefit from it.

Chuck Sabin also emphasized that the Bluetooth Technology Alliance and its member community will continue to innovate and develop simple, flexible, reliable and secure wireless communication solutions to continue to meet the needs of consumer, commercial and industrial use cases, and will always adhere to the original vision and mission: to bring together all innovators to jointly promote technological progress and ultimately create a safer and more connected world.