US research company In-Stat said this week that shipments of broadband devices for the home rose just 0.4% during 2008 and were lucky to just avoid being a victim of the recession.
Shipments of broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) rose to 141.8 million units shipped last year with routers faring the best, followed by DSL modems, and then gateways. Cable modems suffered a single-digit decline with unit shipments dropping to 15.2 million units in 2008.
Among the winners in this market, which took in all forms of broadband connection to the home, was US firm 2Wire, partly owned by Alcatel. It gained 6% in global market share over the past year along with Huawei and Thomson who also had significant market share gains.
Linksys led in routers and home Wi-Fi aggregators, while Thomson held on to the lead in residential gateways. Motorola increased its lead in the declining cable modem market. Huawei held on to the number one position in DSL modems, increasing its share.
Unit growth has generally been slowing, due to slowing cable and DSL subscriber growth and replacements of two units with one unit (modem and router to a gateway). But the economic downturn took a toll on momentum in 2008.
In-Stat said 2Wire stood out for its significant market share gains across the key residential gateway segment where it gained almost 6% market share. In the home Wi-Fi aggregator segment, which overlaps broadband routers and gateways, 2Wire took over the number two position from Netgear, gaining 4.8% of share.
Huawei’s major accomplishment was in the worldwide DSL Modem Market, where it gained over 10% and achieved a unit growth rate of 68%, compared to market-wide growth of just under 2%.
Thomson got the best gains across the board performing strongly across all segments with moderate gains in cable modems, Wi-Fi aggregators, and residential gateways.