US homes house over half a billion Internet-connected devices

The NPD Group's survey of more than 4,000 U.S. consumers age 18 and over found that the number of Internet-connected devices, defined as "computers, tablets, smartphones, HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc Players, video game consoles, and streaming media set top boxes" in U.S. homes has passed the 500 million milestone.

The number of Internet-connected devices has risen to 5.7 per home, up from 5.3 three months ago. In those three months the installed base of tablets rose by almost 18 million and smartphones to almost 9 million, according to the Connected Intelligence Connected Home Report.

"It's hard to believe that tablets and smartphones are still somewhat in their infancy," said John Buffone, director of devices for NPD Connected Intelligence. "But as we have seen in just the past few months, there is significant potential for this market to develop further."

According to The NPD Group's figures, despite the rise of mobile device ownership, pretty much every household (93%) has a PC, "a fact that won't be changing any time soon", says Buffone. "However, when you look at the combined number of smartphones and tablets consumers own, for the first time ever, it exceeded the installed base of computers."

Tags: computer, connected device, consumer survey, household, installed base, PC, smartphone, tablet, U.S.