The adoption of broadband services, including DSL, cable and fiber to the premises (FTTP), helped drive what Infonetics Research said was "the strongest year yet in 2012" for customer premises equipment (CPE).
Although broadband CPE revenue declined 3 percent sequentially in Q4 2012, in 2012 revenue increased 13 percent to $7.7 billion, with the cable segment seeing the largest growth of 26 percent.
Besides the growth of DOCSIS 3.0 CPE, Wi-Fi-enabled CPE is taking center stage.
In its 4th quarter 2012 and year-end report, "Broadband CPE and Subscribers: PON, FTTH, Cable and DSL," Infonetics said that in 2012 almost half of all DSL CPE units sold were Wi-Fi-enabled. It has forecast Wi-Fi-enabled CPE to rise 74 percent by 2017.
"The growth of Wi-Fi-enabled CPE is proof positive that service providers are quickly moving to more integrated devices to control the user experience in the home," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access and pay TV at Infonetics.
As expected, DSL CPE shipments declined 4 percent in 2012, while VDSL CPE shipments rose 39 percent to reach 29 million units.
From a vendor perspective, Huawei was the broadband CPE market share leader for Q4 2012 and the full year 2012, followed closely by ZTE. Infonetics said the two Chinese vendors "benefitted significantly from the FTTH rollouts, particularly at the country's two dominant telcos--China Telecom (NYSE: CHA) and China Unicom."
This year, Infonetics said it expects ongoing vendor market share shifts, with a specific focus of shipments in China.
For more:
- see the release
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