IHS believes that the Wi-Fi extender market will grow from 5.3 million in 2014 to 9.6 million in 2019, driven largely by the adoption of multiscreen TVs.
"We look for shipments of Wi-Fi extenders to grow worldwide over the next several years, especially in North America and EMEA, where there are higher percentages of larger homes or older homes with cinderblock walls that tend to block or weaken Wi-Fi signals," said Jeff Heynen, research director for broadband access and cable TV at IHS.
Heynen added that service providers will increasingly rely on multiscreen video to differentiate their broadband and video offerings. He also said that the extenders will provide greater reliability, given the variability of Wi-Fi signals.
Other findings from the report include a forecast that the home networking market grew 8 percent in 2014, reaching $12.6 billion. In 2014, IHS believes that 802.11ac routers comprised 16 percent of all router shipments, up 744 percent over 2013 shipments.
Routers using 802.11ac standards are forecasted to gain dominance. IHS believes that 802.11ac routers will comprise 86 percent of the market by 2019.
The report tracks broadband routers, residential gateways, set-top boxes, multimedia over coax, optical network terminals and Wi-Fi broadband routers and extenders, as well as various kinds of adapters.
Netgear is one company that has been active in promoting its Wi-Fi extenders. Earlier this year, the company introduced three extenders that feature Netgear's "FastLane" technology, which combines signals from two different Wi-Fi bands to produce faster speeds. The new extenders can also be utilized as Wi-Fi access points.
For more:
- see this IHS release
- see this NetGear release
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