• by Wayne Friedman , December 20, 2013

Internet-enabled TV devices will witness rapid growth over the next year -- but a huge portion of those devices will not be online connections.

U.S. homes will see a 44% rise to 202 million media devices -- up from 140 million at the end of 2013, per NPD Group's Connected Home Forecast. Home devices include connected TV, all streaming media players, Blu-Ray players and gaming consoles.

Not all Internet-enabled devices sold will be connected to the Internet.

The NPD study says 65% of those Internet-enabled devices will get connections by 2015 (131 million connected; 71 million unconnected) -- up from 56% of those devices in 2013 (78 million connected; 62 million unconnected).

Smart TVs will help push this activity. NPD estimates that by 2015, there will be 23 million smart TV sets installed and connected in homes. In addition, the introduction of add-on TV devices such as Chromecast will help push connected media players to 31 million by 2015.

“As consumers connect TVs to the Internet, they are not only using streaming services such as Netflix, they also switch from linear and on-demand TV programming to TV network apps such as HBO GO or WatchESPN,” said John Buffone, executive director, industry analyst, NPD Connected Intelligence, in a release.

He adds: “This change in behavior emphasizes the importance of developing strong watch apps and ensuring they are available on all the devices viewers use to connect their TVs.”

NPD’s Connected Home Forecast is based on quarterly surveys conducted among 5,000 U.S. consumers, age 18 and older .