IDC projects shipment of smart connected devices to jump from the current near 1 Billion to 2 Billion by 2016. PCs, Media Tablets and Smartphones are considered smart connected devices. Android is expected to lead the market share (31.1%) amongst smart connected devices, beating out iOS & Windows PCs.

IDC opines on Android:

“Android’s growth is tied directly to the propagation of lower-priced devices. So, while we expect dozens of hardware vendors to own some share in the Android market, many will find profitability difficult to sustain. Similarly, we expect a large percentage of application developers to continue to focus their efforts on iOS, despite the platform’s smaller overall market share, because iOS end users have proven more willing to pay for high-quality apps.”

Here is a visual representation of Smart Devices Shipment over a six year timeline.

They go onto state that we are living in the ‘multi-device age’. According to IDC, the key challenge in the post PC era is to ‘integrate all these smart devices into a unified whole through use of personal cloud-type applications and services.’

Graph Credit: TechCrunch

All Other Content Credit: IDC