27.9 Million MirrorLink and GENIVI Car Infotainment Systems Shipments by 2018

ABI Research forecasts that the number of MirrorLink and GENIVI car connected automotive infotainment systems will increase from around 10,000 at the end of 2012 to 27.9 million in North America, Western Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2018. Consumers want to stay connected in their cars and OEMs increasingly see infotainment as a key differentiator for their vehicles. However, as OEMs strive to meet their customers’ technological demands they must decide whether to deliver services through an embedded on-board system or via the driver’s mobile phone.

“At stake is whether the in-vehicle infotainment system remains a proprietary system controlled by a few OEMs, becomes an open eco-system nurtured by an international developer community, or whether connectivity, processing, and service delivery resides in the phone and is controlled by the mobile phone industry,” commented Gareth Owen, principal analyst.

MirrorLink and GENIVI are two emerging open industry standards battling against established systems such as BlackBerry’s proprietary QNX platform, and Microsoft’s Embedded Automotive platform. In particular, MirrorLink faces challenges with respect to app development and certification and the introduction of new screen replication technologies from a number of competitors could quickly lead to market fragmentation.

“GENIVI has strong support in the automotive industry but Apple’s imminent entry into the car space is a real threat for MirrorLink unless it can gain traction quickly. MirrorLink really needs to launch its version 1.1 quickly and get as many handset vendors as possible to introduce MirrorLink v1.1 compatible devices,” added Owen.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Automotive Infotainment Research Service which provides analysis of key developments and trends in the marketplace and quantitative information via its extensive car infotainment database. Updated on a quarterly basis, the database offers detailed installed base and forecasts of the car infotainment market by type and region as well as detailed information and forecasts on Bluetooth penetration in cars, automotive apps, and automotive operating systems split by global region.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.