The market for WiFi-enabled Voice-over-Internet Protocol phones reached US$ 102 million in revenues in 2005, and is expected to double this year to more than US$ 200 million. This is according to a report by technology-oriented research firm Infonetics. The report has likewise provides a detailed breakdown across the types of mobile handsets used.
In 2005, about two-thirds of revenue was from single-mode WiFi handsets, or phones designed specifically for use over WiFi networks only. A third was from handsets that support more than one network type, such as GSM and 3G cellular networks.
It is expected that by 2009, the VoWiFi market revenue should reach US$ 1.9 billion. The Infonetics study likewise predicts that by that time, majority of WiFi phone revenue would be from multi-protocol phones, such as cellular handsets with WiFi and VoIP support.
The WiFi phone market is still in its infancy, inasmuch as the underlying technologies—that of Wireless local area networking and Voice-Over-Internet Protocol—have only gained popularity among mass consumers in the last couple of years. This is largely attributed to the widespread availability and decrease in the costs of high speed Internet connections and wireless networking devices, including laptops, routers, PDAs, and even portable videogame consoles. However, with this trend, we can indeed expect the market to grow immensely in the next few years. There is even the possibility of VoWiFi taking over traditional digital cellular networks as the mobile phone technology of choice.