Ready for Your Wi-Fi-Enabled TV?

The research firm forecasts that in 2011, 20 million televisions offering wireless connectivity will be shipped worldwide. Networked TVs are not a novelty everywhere—they are already widespread in techno-trendsetter nation Japan—but in the U.S., it’s a trend that’s set to take off.

"North America, Western Europe, and select Asian countries are seen as the next growth markets, and the 2009 holiday season and 2010 will be the watershed periods when vendors will see whether networked TV should trickle down to mainstream models and really take off there," said industry analyst Michael Inouye in an ABI press release today.

In the battle for in-home networking market share, if wireless prevails over wired (Ethernet), the most likely technology to win the crown is Wi-Fi, thanks to the soon-to-(finally)-be-ratified 802.11n standard, says ABI.