According to Jeff Heynen, research director for broadband access and pay TV at IHS, the Customer Premises Equipment(CPE) market in general remains strong, with a 3 percent growth in the past year. IHS expects both DOCSIS 3.1 and G.fast to help add momentum to the cable and DSL CPE market segments and FTTH to continue at its current pace, driven by deployments in China, North America and EMEA. This and other insights were published in IHS's quarterly PON, FTTH, Cable, DSL, and Wireless Broadband CPE report that tracks DSL, cable and FTTH CPE as well as mobile broadband routers and residential gateways.
The worldwide broadband CPE revenue, however, said IHS, dropped to $2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015, decreasing 2 percent sequentially, although unit shipments remained at 54 million as service providers continued to expand their fixed broadband service capabilities in the highly-competitive CPE market. IHS said that on a year-over-year basis, global broadband CPE unit shipments were up 9 percent in 1Q15 as operator investments in premium CPE such as EPON and fixed LTE continued.
As service providers use mobile broadband to complement fixed broadband deployments, use cases for mobile broadband routers are anticipated to grow considerably, sending unit shipments to over 622,000 in 2019, added IHS.