One question I hear regularly is “What is the installed base of products containingBluetooth technology?” I haven’t seen a detailed analysis of the installed base of products. What I tend to see is the number of products shipped in a given year and projections for how many will ship in the future.

Putting together a model for the installed base can be very complex, but I think a simplified model focusing on the key product types that include Bluetooth technologyprovides a reasonable estimate. Here is an example of such a model. Feel free to add to or subtract from it to suit your needs.

The simplified model consists of shipments from the current top product categories and estimated lifetimes for those products. Over the past five years, the most significantBluetooth product categories have been:

• Mobile Phones

• Headsets

• Cars

• Game Consoles

• Personal Computers and HIDs* (including dongles)

• Tablets

• TVs (while not historically a major category for Bluetooth devices, TVs are becoming one)

(*HIDs includes keyboards, mice and other "Human Interface Devices")

Other categories aren’t used in this model. If used, they would actually result in a larger installed base.

Using the shipments of products in these categories and the forecast for the remainder of this year, a simple model of the installed base can be created with a month’s granularity. After choosing the typical lifetime for each category in months, all that is left to do is add up the number of products in its active lifetime to get the installed base estimate.

The shipment volumes used were:

 

Using this model, the current minimum installed base of products withBluetooth technology is 3.831 billion and will grow to more than 4.2 billion by the end of 2011. This installed base represents a great opportunity for new products to interact with!

(Credit: Mike Foley)