Home network market up as new devices create 'digital homes' and allow media sharing

CAMPBELL, CA — Market research firm Infonetics Research in March released its new quarterly Home Networking Devices market forecast report, which tracks, ranks, and analyzes vendors that make residential gateways, broadband routers, HomePlug Powerline adapters, MoCA coax-Ethernet adapters, and home network attached storage (home NAS).

“Sales of home networking devices grew 11% in 2010, to $5.15 billion, on the heels of a 46% jump the previous year, with all segments of the market posting increases. We are expecting a challenging year for residential gateways this year, though, as operators have a lot of inventory on hand but are having trouble adding new DSL and cable subscribers. This trend will keep the overall market flat in 2011 despite strong sales of Homeplug Powerline adapters, MoCA coax-Ethernet adapters, and home NAS,” predicts Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research.

HOME NETWORKING DEVICE MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• Quarter-over-quarter, the home network device market was up just 0.1% in 4Q10 as residential gateway and broadband router sales slowed in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America after a surge the previous quarter
• The small but fast-growing MoCA coax-Ethernet adapter segment posted the highest revenue growth in 2010, up 93%
• D-Link leads the highly competitive broadband router market in 4Q10
• Pace (LSE: PIC), which recently acquired 2Wire, now leads the residential gateway market
• The EMEA region leads the world in HomePlug adapter and home NAS device sales, primarily because IPTV penetration is so much higher there, particularly Europe, where telco operators typically offer a HomePlug kit to connect an IP set-top box in the home to a residential gateway
• While relatively small now, the home NAS (network attached storage) market is forecast by Infonetics to more than quadruple between 2010 and 2015 as more consumers purchase these devices to centrally store digital content to share across multiple PCs, tablets, gaming consoles, connected TVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, and other platforms in the home

HOME NETWORK REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics’ new quarterly home networking report provides worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, analysis, and forecasts through 2015 for residential gateways (broadband gateways and multiservice gateways), WiFi broadband routers, wired broadband routers, HomePlug powerline adapters, MoCA coax-Ethernet adapters, and home NAS appliances.

Companies tracked include 2Wire, Actiontec, Alcatel-Lucent, ARRIS, AVM, Cisco Systems, Compal Broadband, Comtrend, D-Link, Gigaset, Huawei, Motorola, NETGEAR, Pace plc, Sagemcom, Sumitomo, Technicolor, Telsey, Ubee Interactive, Westell, ZyXEL, and others.