The broadband customer premise equipment (CPE) market remained robust last year thanks in part to the continued growth of DOCSIS 3.0-based services.
Worldwide broadband CPE device shipments totaled 144.9 million in 2012, according to a recent report by ABI Research. This year ABI projected that 149.4 million broadband CPE devices, which include modems, wired routers, and gateways, will be shipped.
Despite the gain in market share of fiber optic devices over the past few years, CPE device shipments in other broadband platforms such as DSL and cable are not likely to drop in the near future, ABI said.
DSL operators are switching from ADSL to VDSL while most of the cable operators in the United States have implemented DOCSIS 3.0 wideband services.
“Since these advanced technologies allow DSL and cable operators to compete with fiber optic broadband operators in terms of price and service quality, VDSL and DOCSIS 3.0 CPE device shipments have grown year-over-year,” said Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst.
DOCSIS 3.0 CPE shipments spiked dramatically last year. In 2012, 37 million DOCSIS 3.0 devices were shipped, representing 67 percent of cable CPE shipments. This represented a 65 percent increase compared to 2011.
ABI Research expects that 83 percent of total cable CPE shipments in 2013 will be DOCSIS 3.0-based devices.
Among the broadband CPE device manufacturers, ZTE and Huawei ranked first and second position in terms of market share, holding 14 percent and 8 percent, respectively, of total device shipment in 2012. The two Chinese vendors were also the top-two vendors of FTTH CPE shipments with 40 percent and 38 percent, respectively, of total fiber CPE shipments (30.7 million) in 2012.
