Shipments of consumer devices that can be powered or charged wirelessly are forecast to grow from just 1.5 million in 2009 to almost one billion in 2019, according to the latest analysis from IMS Research (http://ww.imsresearch.com).

According to IMS Research’s recent report, “The Growth Potential for Wireless Power and Charging”, activity in the wireless power industry has increased significantly over the last two years and the market is now poised for explosive growth. There are numerous start-ups offering solutions using conductive, inductive, magnetic resonance, RF and infrared wireless power technologies and although their shipments were very low last year; this is forecast to grow rapidly driven by the adoption in high volume applications such as cell phones.

"Initial adoption of wireless power will be for aftermarket add-on solutions, though we predict mass adoption will occur as major cell phone and notebook OEMs are intending to integrate the technology into their products," says research analyst Ryan Sanderson.

In 2009 Dell’s Latitude Z notebook was introduced with integrated wireless charging. At CES 2010, Palm announced that its Palm Pre Plus would ship with the Palm Touchstone Back Cover, making it compatible with its inductive charging dock.

“Other applications, in particular cell phones, will follow suit in 2010, fuelled by industry standards such as the low power interoperability standard, which is under development by The Wireless Power Consortium, and due for release in early 2010," says Sanderson. "These interoperability standards will allow enabled equipment to be used with any wireless power transmitter and will be the ignition for mass adoption."