IMS Research expects the number of phones featuring near-field communications (NFC)...

IMS Research expects the number of phones featuring near-field communications (NFC) chips, which are used to enable services such as Google Wallet (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Isis, will grow from 35M in 2011 to 80M in 2012. However, the latter figure still represents just a fraction of the 630M smartphones Gartner sees being sold next year. BRCM and NXPI are among the names targeting the NFC chip market (I, II).