Strong demand from China has prompted IHS to raise its global five-year forecast for broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) shipments and sales 8 percent. Encompassing DSL, cable, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), residential gateways and mobile broadband CPE, IHS now expects the worldwide market for broadband CPE will reach $12.4 billion by 2019.
¨Despite reported economic headwinds, the Chinese government continues to subsidize telco investments in fiber infrastructure to expand accessibility and throughput. The result is heavy spending on GPON and EPON ONTs,” IHS research director for broadband access and pay-TV Jeff Heynen was quoted in the news release.
“At the same time, the shift from fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) to FTTH architecture is well underway in China. A primary reason for this architectural shift is that FTTB plus ADSL take-rates at China Telecom have been disappointing; consumers aren’t interested in a connection that offers only a marginal improvement over what they already have. If they are to subscribe to a home broadband service, it needs to provide a minimum of 8MB to 10MB speeds.”
Broadband CPE Forecast
Other highlights from the quarterly IHS Infonetics “PON, FTTH, Cable, DSL, and Wireless Broadband CPE¨ market research report include:
- In2Q15, the global broadband CPE market grew 5 percent from the previous quarter, to $2.9 billion; unit shipments grew 11 percent, to 61 million
- Worldwide total broadband CPE revenue is up 7 percent from the year-ago second quarter, when it was just under $2.7 billion
- Quarter-over-quarter, from 1Q15 to 2Q15 DSL CPE unit shipments were down 1 percent to 23 million, with VDSL IADs posting the highest growth (+11 percent)
- Cable CPE units were up 1 percent to 11.6 million (90% of which were WiFi-enabled), with DOCSIS 3.0 modems posting the highest growth (+13 percent)
- Fixed LTE CPE shipments grew 4 percent.
