DAS revenue slides in 2015 but still due for renewed growth, IHS says

Global distributed antenna system (DAS) equipment revenue took a hit in 2015, sinking 12 percent to $1.9 billion. But IHS's biannual DAS report predicts the market will rebound at a compound annual growth rate of 2.4 percent, leading it to a total of $2.2 billion by 2020.

According to the report, the Americas and Asia Pacific region were major contributors to last year's slowdown for the market. In North America, DAS revenue fell 20 percent year-over-year while Asia Pacific fell 12 percent year-over-year and the Caribbean and Latin America fell 10 percent year-over-year.

"Pulling the market down were a dramatic slowdown at AT&T and, in Brazil, América Móvil's decision to go the small cells path, as well as slow growth in China that did not offset the regional decline. In contrast, revenue grew in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) by single digits, driven by sporadic in-building projects across the region," IHS wrote in an analyst note. "Nonetheless, the U.S. and China remain the world's two largest DAS markets and are expected to do so through at least 2020 due to the number and magnitude of their venues such as sports and entertainment stadiums, convention centers, transport stations and ports."

IHS said the DAS game has shifted from bigger venues like stadiums to small indoor enterprise venues including shopping malls and subway stations, fueling strong competition between DAS and small cells and negatively affecting the DAS market.

In terms of DAS equipment market share, IHS still has U.S.-based CommScope, including TE Connectivity, followed by U.S.-based Corning Mobile and U.K.-based Cobham.

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