Shipments of NFC-capable handsets reached 30 million units in 2011, increasing tenfold over the year before, according to a report from Berg Insight. Growing at a CAGR of 87.8 per cent, shipments of NFC handsets are forecast to reach 700m units in 2016.
“Even though it will take some time before the stakeholders agree on business models for payment networks,” says André Malm, senior analyst at Berg Insight, “other use cases, such as reading tags and easy pairing of devices, may well be compelling enough for handset vendors to integrate NFC in mid- and high-end devices already today.” 
The report also looks at the rise in attach rates for other wireless connectivity technologies in handsets, including GPS – which has reached a 31 per cent attach rate among smartphones – WLAN – 33 per cent, with shipments having roughly doubled annually for the last four years – and Bluetooth. According to Berg, declining costs will also enable broader integration in the featurephone segment, which is rapidly gaining smartphone-like functionality.
