Shipments of electronic products with embedded wireless local area networking technology (WLAN) will surpass one billion units for the first time ever in 2011 and then rise to more than two billion in 2015, as ubiquitous connectivity increasingly becomes a standard feature, IHS iSuppli research indicates.

  Shipments of consumer electronics, computer, communications, home and automotive products with built-in WLAN capability will amount to 1.2 billion units in 2011, up 35.8 percent from 880.4 billion units in 2010. In 2015, shipments will nearly double from the 2011 level to reach 2.2 billion. This year, 19.7 percent of suitable devices shipped worldwide will have some form of embedded WLAN, up from 15.6 percent in 2010. By 2015, that percentage will rise to 28.1 percent. The penetration of embedded WLAN has risen dramatically in recent years, expanding from just one percent of these devices in 2002.

  Today’s robot gladiators, tomorrow’s appliance design engineers? Says Ron Overton, CEO of Mooresville, Ind.-based Overton Industries and a member of the NTMA board of directors, “The U.S. remains the world’s largest manufacturing economy, and the manufacturing sector is experiencing tremendous growth as the economy recovers.”