Sales of wireline broadband access equipment slumped 23% year over year to $5.42 billion in 2013, says research firm Ovum. DSL equipment revenues fell 28% as VDSL equipment sales were not enough to offset a decline in ADSL equipment sales. PON (Passive Optical Network) equipment sales fell 24%, reflecting the lack of a major, new FTTH deployment, Ovum says.
2013 was a tough year for wireline broadband access equipment vendors,” commented Ovum prinicipal analyst, Julie Kunstler, author of “Market Share Report: 2013 FTTx, DSL, and CMTS.”
“We are cautiously optimistic that the large revenue declines will not repeat in 2014. While pricing pressures will continue, we expect strong shipments in vectoring ready VDSL, PON ONTs/ONUs and CMTS.”
Among the report’s key takeaways:
- For the total broadband access equipment market, Alcatel-Lucent led the gainers followed by Cisco and Adtran. ZTE posted the largest loss in market share. Huawei maintained its dominant position with 28 percent market share.
- While 2013 showed a significant decline in broadband access equipment revenues, the rate of decline will subside in 2014.
- VDSL shipments will remain strong in North America and Western Europe as communications service providers continue to upgrade copper-based networks.
- Vectoring trials will continue throughout 2014 and Ovum expects more announcements regarding commercial availability.
- ONT/ONU shipments will also remain strong in 2014 as FTTH subscribers are brought onto networks. 1G is gaining mindshare as several service providers see bandwidth as a differentiator.
- OLT port shipments will not grow without a significant, new FTTH PON deployment.
- PON vendors are finding non-FTTH market niches including optical LAN and mobile traffic backhaul. Ovum expects to see expansion in both market niches in 2014. PON for mobile backhaul could boost the next-gen PON market.
- CMTS shipments will remain steady in 2014. The largest unknown is the pending Comcast acquisition of Time Warner, which could help or hurt this market depending on capex plans.
