Two of three global industry groups vying to establish a dominant standard for wireless charging technology have agreed to merge, bringing consumers a small step closer to throwing away their smartphone power cords. The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), backed by Intel Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics, and and Power Matters Alliance (PMA) announced at CES that the organizations have signed a Letter of Intent to merge and establish an organization that will accelerate the availability and deployment of wireless charging technology on a global scale. The A4WP and PMA, leaders in wireless charging technology, have agreed in principal to the terms of the merger that is expected to close by mid-2015.

One of the main objectives of the new organization is to accelerate the transition to volume economies of scale of wireless power transfer technology to benefit consumers, mobile network operators, consumer-facing commercial and retail brands, and the consumer electronics industry, including its semiconductor and manufacturing partners. For the consumer electronics industry, in particular, the benefit is the creation of a multi-source supplier base to drive value-added features into product roadmaps across a broad range of devices from Bluetooth headsets to wearables to smartphones, and on up to tablets, notebooks and laptops, among many others.

Under terms of the Letter of Intent, the new entity will operate under a to-be-announced new name. The A4WP and PMA Boards will combine and feature a roster of global consumer brands, supply chain and market leaders: AT&T, Broadcom, Duracell, Flextronics, Gill Electronics, Integrated Device Technologies (IDT), Intel, Powermat, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Starbucks and WiTricity.

A third group, the Wireless Power Consortium which includes tech names such as Nokia and Philips, has made the most headway so far with its "Qi" standard shipping in about 20 million devices in 2013, equivalent to less than 2 percent of the billion smartphones shipped around the world.