Broadband CPE market dips in 4Q08

Digital home gateways remain bright spot

CAMPBELL, CALIFORNIA — Communications market research firm Infonetics Research recently released the fourth quarter (4Q08) edition of its Broadband CPE and Subscribers report. Highlights follow.

Jeff Heynen, Directing Analyst, Broadband and Video, Infonetics Research: “In the fourth quarter of 2008, a slowdown in broadband subscriber growth caused worldwide manufacturer revenue to decline 5% for DSL CPE, and 2% for cable CPE. 2009 will be a challenging year for operators trying to secure new subscribers who are increasingly unwilling to upgrade their current services. The bright spot in the market continues to be the fast-growing digital home gateway segment, as more and more telcos use them to bundle IPTV into broadband services to increase ARPU. While 2009 will be a challenging year for broadband CPE vendors, the long-term forecast is good. Broadband connections to deliver converged services – voice, video, and high speed Internet now, and home monitoring and automation services later – will grow at a healthy clip from 2010 to 2013.”

Market Research Report Highlights

• In a quarter that is usually seasonally up, the worldwide broadband CPE market sequentially dipped 4% to $1.0 billion in 4Q08, reflecting a cautious attitude among telcos and MSOs
• Worldwide VoIP subscriber additions and voice-enabled CPE revenues were down as well, but are expected to pick up in the second half of 2009 as cable operators with digital voice services and telcos transitioning away from their PSTN access lines to VoIP over broadband more aggressively price these services
• 2Wire, Cisco, and Motorola posted the biggest DSL CPE revenue gains in 2008 over 2007
• Cisco, NETGEAR, and Thomson posted the biggest cable CPE revenue gains for the year
• Worldwide digital home gateway sales grew 12% in 4Q08, with most of the revenue hailing from North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), where operators like Verizon, AT&T, Orange, and Free provide fully integrated gateways that can prioritize voice, data, and video packets and provide in-home networking features and services such as whole home DVR, which Verizon has deployed with great success

Report Synopsis

Infonetics’ quarterly broadband CPE report provides worldwide and regional market share, market size, analysis, and forecasts through 2013 for DSL CPE (ADSL, VDSL, and G.SHDSL modems and gateways; ADSL IADs); standard and wideband cable CPE (modems, gateways, and EMTAs); residential gateways (broadband, multiservice, and digital home gateways); voice terminal adapters (VTAs); voice CPE; and standard and wideband cable subscribers and DSL subscribers.

The broadband CPE report tracks 2Wire, Actiontec, ARRIS, AVM, Cisco Systems (Linksys, Scientific Atlanta), D-Link, Gemtek, Huawei, Motorola, NETGEAR, Nokia Siemens, Sagem, SMC, Sphairon Sumitomo, Telsey, Thomson, Ubee (Ambit Broadband), US Robotics, Westell, Xavi Technologies, Zhone, ZTE, ZyXEL, and others. The report includes easily customizable pivot tables for quick, ad hoc product and vendor data comparisons and analysis.