A "major increase in worldwide broadband subscribers," along with the "hot popularity of wireless- and VoIP-enabled equipment," is resulting in Customer Premises Equipment market growth of nearly 20% in 2005, reports tech market research and forecasting firm In-Stat.
The broadband CPE market is comprised of devices that primarily include modem and home-networking functionality.
By any reckoning it's a healthy market, despite potholes like last quarter, when worldwide revenues from sales of broadband CPE fell 5 percent to $1.2 billion. Even as revenues were falling unit shipments rose 8 percent to 28.8 million, according to figures from Infonetics Research reported last week.
Infonetics remains bullish on the industry, forecasting that worldwide annual revenues from broadband CPE sales will hit $4.6 billion by 2008.
Worldwide voice-enabled broadband CPE, a category which includes ADSL IADs, EMTAs, and voice terminal adapters had its biggest quarter to date with $188.4 million in 3Q05, up 2 percent from 2Q05. Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and IPTV at Infonetics Research attributed the robust growth predicted for the market to the convergence of voice, data, and video services, "particularly voice-enabled CPE, residential gateways and, in the long term, IP set top boxes."
Infonetics expects voice-enabled broadband CPE revenues to grow by 123 percent between 2004 and 2008 "as consumers and enterprises around the world continue to adopt VoIP."
In-Stat's research says the market is moving from being dominated by modems toward a heavier focus on gateways, the research firm says.
"Broadband service providers are behind this transition, as they believe that it is necessary to deliver more advanced services. This transition will enable service providers to provide a back-end managed home network and add opportunities for additional revenue," said Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst.
The findings are reported in In-Stat offering, "Broadband CPE 2005: Focus on VoIP, Integration & Wireless."
The fact that many consumers are attempting to save on their phone bill by trying out several flavors of VoIP is boosting the market for VoIP-enabled CPE, according to the findings.
And while the move from two-box products, such as modem/router combinations, to one-box residential gateway deployments for home networks means fewer boxes sold, this "two-for-one" box transition will, In-Stat thinks, impact total broadband CPE unit growth over the next five years.
For the moneyed set, defined as "those who can afford reports like this," the research covers what In-Stat considers to be the most important trends and worldwide vendor market shares (modems, gateways, SOHO routers), and provides what In-Stat officials describe as "five-year forecasts of residential gateways, modems, and routers in units and revenues."
Cable and DSL CPE modems and gateways are forecasted by region, forecasts for gateways are broken out by access type and also included are forecasts for cable CPE with E-MTA, VoIP-enabled DSL CPE and routers, and DOCSIS standard migration.
David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.