Gizmos, gadgets and goodies galore. All alliterations aside (I can’t stop…), high tech used to be the domain of the special, the few…the geeks. But the modern everyday consumer has evolved and they are a smartphone-toting, Bluetooth-connected, tech-savvy beast. Which is why some of today’s biggest innovations in technology are coming in the form of consumer tech.

In that vein, TechNavio has compiled some info on the big and growing consumer electronics sphere, including prominent vendors and their best product offerings in a few growing markets:

• Consumer NAS Market
• Global AV Headphones Market
• Global Microdisplays Market
• Global Digital Map Market

Global Consumer NAS Market

Consumer network attached storage (NAS) systems are centralized and offer multifunction storage for home networks. They can connect several PCs, media players, print servers, and media servers together in a network and provide fast, remote access to all.

Market Growth: The Global Consumer NAS Market is growing at a CAGR of 14.3 percent from 2014-2018.

Prominent Vendors

• Buffalo Technology Inc.

In 2013, Buffalo Technology Inc. had 19.7 percent share of the global shipments in the consumer NAS market.

Popular Product: Buffalo's LinkStation Live costs less than US$150 and has numerous features such as AFP and FTP file sharing, BitTorrent downloading, integrated Eye-Fi service, NovaBackup, and Flickr integration. However, it is slow in copying files, has a slow user interface, and its feature configuration is complex.

• Western Digital Corp.

Western Digital’s products are strategically priced to deliver high return on investment, which has consistently made the company one of the top dogs in the market, with a 12.9 percent share in 2013.

Popular Products: The MyCloud series products have a dual-core processor and are available in 2TB, 3TB, and 4TB capacities. They are compatible with Windows (8/7Vista/XP-SP3) and Mac OS (Mountain Lion/Lion/Snow Leopard). However there have been some issues with data security in the company's single drive solutions.

• Apple Inc.

In 2013, Apple Inc. accounted for 11.4 percent of shipments in the market. Compared to other products out there, Apple NAS solutions are costly and come in far fewer varieties. However, this is nothing new to Apple diehards, and many people see value in paying a pretty penny more in return for the high reliability and low maintenance of these products.

Popular Products: Apple Time Machine and Airport Time Capsule.  

Global AV Headphones Market

What’s the point in having unlimited streaming services like Rdio and Spotify if you can’t listen to them anytime, anywhere? The vendors in our Global AV Headphones market are ensuring that we are plugged into top-notch audio at all times.

Market Growth: The Global AV Headphones Market is growing at a CAGR of 20.43 percent from 2014-2018.

Prominent Vendors

• Beats Electronics LLC

Founded by Dr. Dre, Beats Electronics is known for selling a huge range of high quality, expertly designed headphone and earphones. Currently, the company manufactures all its products in-house, but it allows majority shareholder HTC Corp. exclusive rights to manufacture smartphones with Beats-branded audio systems.

• Bose Corp.

Bose is synonymous with quality in the high-end audio market. The company designs, develops, and markets sound systems for entertainment, home audio, aviation, and automotive applications, and is one of the leading manufacturers of docks and soundbars and is known for its noise cancelling headsets and automotive sound systems.

Popular Products: Bose QuietComfort 20i acoustic noise cancelling headphones and the recently launched Bose SoundLink mini Bluetooth mobile speaker, to name a few.

• Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG

Sennheiser released the world’s first open headphones in 1968. Since then the company has been a leading competitor in the market, producing a wide range of high-fidelity products that include microphones, headphones, telephone accessories, and avionics headsets.

The company is known for its innovation and strategic objectives that are helping to shape the future of the audio industry.

Popular Products: The original HD414 headphones have sold more than 10 million units, but their huge product portfolio also boasts entertainment headphones, studio headphones and noise cancelling headphones.

Global Microdisplay Market

Microdisplays are displays with a screen size of less than 25mm. They are high-density, high-resolution screens used in magnified displays, typically with two basic applications: Projection microdisplay and near-to-eye display.

Market Growth: The Global Microdisplays Market is growing at a CAGR of 33.31 percent from 2014-2018.

Prominent Vendors

• AU Optronics Corp.

AU Optronics designs, develops, manufactures, assembles, and markets a range of display panels for mobile PCs, monitors, consumer electronic products, and LCD televisions.

It is the world’s first manufacturer to be certified with ISO 50001 energy management certification and ISO 14045 eco-efficiency assessment of product systems verification.

Popular Products: Demonstrated the 5-inch FHD OLED smartphone display applications and technologies focused on ultra-high resolution, super narrow bezel, high-performance touch solution, and diverse applications and technologies with high value-added

• eMagin Corp.

eMagin targets markets across the board, including the Military, Healthcare, Law Enforcement, Gaming, and Entertainment sectors. It offers OLED microdisplays and near-eye virtual imaging modules, incorporating OLED-on-silicon microdisplays with lenses and electronic interfaces that help in the integration with OEM products. It also offers Z800 3DVisors that help in computing, in personal entertainment and gaming.

Popular Products: In May 2013, eMagin unveiled the world's brightest full-color OLED microdisplay

• Kopin Corp.

Kopin Corp offers technologies that are used to create hands-free, voice-and-gesture-controlled wireless computing systems, which also include an optical pod featuring proprietary miniature flat panel displays.

Popular Products: Kopin Corp’s CyberDisplay products are high density color or monochrome active matrix LCDs with high pixel density.

Global Digital Map Market

Market Growth: The Global Digital Map Market is growing at a CAGR of 9.37 percent from 2014-2018.

Prominent Vendors

• HERE (Nokia Corp.)

HERE was the leader in the Global Outdoor Digital Map market, accounting for a 47.8 percent share of the revenue in 2013. The company is a subsidiary of Nokia Corp and its map database contains almost 406 map attributes such as turn restrictions, physical barriers and gates, one-way streets, restricted access, and relative road heights. HERE mostly offers its maps to automobile manufacturers, PNDs, mobile and internet companies, and large enterprises.

Popular Products: On top of its HERE Map product, HERE recently launched maps for indoor navigation as well as digital maps for real-time traffic updates in India.

• TomTom

TomTom NV accounted for 19.2 percent of the share in the Global Outdoor Digital Map market in 2013. Through several acquisitions, the company has achieved navigable coverage in 112 countries and of 36.5 million kilometers of roads. Recently, the company signed partnerships with several smartphone providers including Apple for its iOS map and Samsung for its Galaxy Wave 3.

Popular Products: In October and November 2012 TomTom released major updates to its global maps and launched a location-based platform for rapid application development.

• Google Inc.

This one really needs no introduction. Google maps have been the go-to from the get-go, and most folks with a smartphone rely on Google Maps to get where they’re going with little difficulty. The company is currently developing partnerships with several retail chains to expand the number of its users at a faster rate.

Popular Products: Google Maps (obviously) and a slew of other maps, including Google Earth, Google Street View etc.

For more information on all these markets, as well as the general consumer electronics segments, view our reports:

• Global Consumer NAS Market 2014-2018
• Global AV Headphones Market 2014-2018
• Global Microdisplays Market 2014-2018
• Global Digital Map Market 2014-2018