Report: Rising broadband subs fueling CPE market

Report: Rising broadband subs fueling CPE market
By Traci Patterson, CEDMarch 8, 2007
The increasing number of worldwide broadband subscribers is fueling the broadband CPE market, which grew 15 percent to $5.6 billion last year, according to Infonetics Research's latest Broadband CPE and Subscribers Report.
Surging residential gateway sales, which jumped 39 percent between Q1 and Q4 2006 to $2.9 billion, contributed to the rise in CPE manufacturer revenue. The most popular are multiservice gateways - ADSL IAD sales have nearly doubled for the last four years, and EMTA sales, which quadrupled in 2005, almost doubled in 2006.
Infonetics expects ADSL IADs and broadband gateways will keep annual revenue growth in the overall market to the low single digits through 2010, mostly because it expects competition will drive down the price per unit.
Worldwide revenue for voice CPE - including DSL IADs, EMTAs, VTAs, digital home gateways and broadband routers with integrated VTA capability - jumped 115 percent in 2006 and now accounts for 30 percent of the CPE market, Infonetics said.
"Right now, service providers are competing with each other for voice dollars, which is driving their purchase of EMTAs and IADs," said Infonetics analyst Jeff Heynen, in a statement. "Carriers are shifting their focus to video, though, so phase two of the triple play battle will spur big increases in gateway sales - especially VDSL broadband gateways, revenue for which is expected to quadruple in 2007, and digital home gateways, revenue for which will grow six-fold between now and 2010."
The worldwide broadband CPE revenue leader in 2006 was Linksys, followed by Thomson and Motorola. North America holds 39 percent of the worldwide market; it's followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with 35 percent, and Asia Pacific, with 20 percent.
Companies tracked for the report include 2Wire, ARRIS, AVM, Buffalo, D-Link, Foxconn, Huawei, Linksys, Motorola, NETGEAR, Scientific Atlanta, Siemens, Sumitomo, Thomson, Westell, ZTE, ZyXEL and others.