GENEVA — In Switzerland, the number of DAB radios sold reached 3.25 million as of last autumn, in addition to 750,000 DAB+ receivers for in-car use (I’m presuming that means as standard equipment).
You may know that Switzerland is the next country planning to turn off FM, likely over the period 2020-2024, though there’s no specific final shutdown date, according to radionytt.no. (Another spot in Europe turning off FM is south Tyrol in Italy.)
Use of digital radio sources has increased there. Switzerland’s Office of Communications reports that use of digital radio accounts for 34% of all radio use, up by 11% year over year, according to the same article.
1.29 million DAB+ radios were sold last year in Norway, according to statistics from Elektronikkbransjen, the Norwegian Consumer Electronics Trade Foundation, reports radionytt.no. 35% more units were sold in 2017 than in 2016. In addition, 700,000 DAB adapters for cars were sold during 2017.
To put that in perspective, Norway has around 5 million inhabitants.
There are currently thirteen manufacturers of digital radio chips worldwide and Frontier Smart Technologies is currently the world’s largest supplier, according to radiovisie.eu. The company reports that it has sold 45 million chip sets for digital radio (DAB/DAB+) as of January. Frontier chips can be found in the digital radio devices of Bose, Denon, Grundig, Harman/Kardon, Hama, JBL, Marshall, Onkyo, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Pure, Roberts, Sony, TechniSat, UrbanEars and Yamaha.
New generations of radio receiver chips can handle virtually all worldwide analog and digital radio standards and frequency bands — for AM and FM as well as for DAB(+), DRM(+) and HD-Radio.
