The connected car is firmly established and growing, according to market research firm Gartner, which predicts there will be a quarter billion connected cars on the road worldwide by 2020.
Connectivity for Gartner includes telematics, automated driving capabilities, in-vehicle services, and infotainment systems — which include radio.
“The connected car is already a reality, and in-vehicle wireless connectivity is rapidly expanding from luxury models and premium brands, to high-volume midmarket models,” Gartner Research Director James Hines told information-age.com. “The increased consumption and creation of digital content within the vehicle will drive the need for more sophisticated infotainment systems, creating opportunities for application processors, graphics accelerators, displays and human-machine interface technologies.”
The connected car is part of the “Internet of Things” trend; Gartner predicts there will be 4.9 billion connected things in use this year — up 30% over 2014.
Gartner forecasts that about one in five vehicles on the road worldwide will have some form of wireless network connection by 2020, amounting to more than 250 million connected vehicles.
