5 April 2007 -- Silicon (micro-electrical-mechanical system) MEMs microphone installations doubled between 2005 and 2006 to reach 20% of mobile phones manufactured, according to research firm The Information Network (TIN).
The silicon microphone market is geared to grow from 100 million units, which represented 6.1% of the 1.6 billion microphones sold worldwide in 2005 to more than 500 billion units in 2008, a compounded average growth rate (CAGR) of 90%.
Nearly 90% of shipments in 2006 were for cell phones with the remaining nearly 10% in consumer applications such as digital cameras, MP3 players, and PDAs. In 2008 a small percentage of silicon microphones will be going into headsets and hearing aids, according to TIN.
Knowles Acoustics (USA) has emerged as the number one worldwide provider of MEMS acoustic components with more than a 95% share, followed by SonionMicrotronic (Denmark), noted TIN.
"We see no other companies besides Knowles and Sonion that will be able to make a dent in the market over the next three years except for some esoteric application such as hearing aids," noted Dr Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. Knowles' early and significant success in marketing this product has created a lock on the market, minimizing the chance of market share gains by existing silicon microphone vendors and a growing number of Chinese manufacturers."
