Consumer Awareness of Wireless Charging Rising Amid Many Challenges
The past year has seen a “huge change” in the wireless power industry, said David Green, IHS research manager, during the opening of the Wireless Power Summit. The market moved from an “industry push” model to one where “consumers are…
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pulling technology from us,” said Green in San Diego Thursday. The challenge for 2016, as product availability increases and consumers begin to adopt wireless charging, is how to avoid customers “pushing back” if the user experience falls short, Green said. He referred to a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma, where infrastructure providers haven’t wanted to invest in wireless charging if no receivers could take advantage of the technology. Device makers, in turn, haven’t been willing to pay for receivers without a public charging infrastructure, Green said. Some 55 million wireless charging receivers shipped in 2014, and that number is expected to jump to 160 million this year, including 20 million from wearables, said Green, crediting a rise in consumer awareness. This year, consumer awareness more than doubled to 76 percent. IHS predicts a “big bump” in 2017-2018 shipments, though Green said wireless won’t soon replace wired.