As consumers upgrade to better broadband networks they are driving growth in broadband customer premise equipment (CPE). ABI Research predicts that broadband CPE shipments will top 153.6 million by year-end with fiber-optic CPE devices increasing about 12 percent in 2015 and DSL and cable CPE devices slightly declining.
According to Khin Sandi Lynn, analyst with ABI, the growth in the fiber-optic CPE shipments is due to more consumers migrating to advanced broadband platforms, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, which accounts for more than 70 percent of fiber-optic CPE shipments. Lynn added that 22 million FTTH subscribers were added in 2014.
But as consumers upgrade to faster broadband, they are migrating away from DSL. DSL CPE shipments dropped about 2 percent in 2014. ABI predicts that in the future the DSL broadband device market will be driven by customers that upgrade to better performing platforms like VDSL and G.fast. In the cable market, DOCSIS 3.0 CPE devices make up about 90 percent of total shipments but as MSOs upgrade to DOCSIS 3.1, consumers will also begin to switch to the DOCSIS 3.1 modems, which are expected to hit the market in late 2016.
ABI said ZTE has about 19 percent of the modem, fixed router and residential gateway market share as of first quarter 2015.
Last month research firm IHS Infonetics predicted that DOCSIS 3.1 and G.fast deployments would likely drive more momentum into the cable and CSL CPE markets. The firm said that worldwide broadband CPE revenue declined to $2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015, while unit shipments stayed flat at 54 million.
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