Infonetics Research: Cable broadband aggregation equipment market to hit $1.4B in 2011; sales up 13% in 4Q07

Worldwide sales of cable broadband aggregation equipment, which includes CMTS and universal edge QAMs (UEQs), increased 13% to $199 million between 3Q07 and 4Q07, the first quarterly revenue increase in 2007, according to Infonetics Research's latest "Cable Broadband Aggregation Hardware and Subscribers" report.

Infonetics expects the overall cable broadband aggregation hardware market to grow from $860 million in 2007 to nearly $1.4 billion in 2011, as UEQs increasingly get deployed for DOCSIS 3.0 and switched digital video rollouts.

"Increasing competition among equipment providers to serve MSOs as they upgrade their cable networks is placing downward pressure on overall CMTS revenue growth, as will the introduction of lower-cost M-CMTS architectures, but we still expect to see sustained annual revenue growth over the next five years," said Mark Showalter, the new directing analyst for broadband networks at Infonetics Research.

"On the vendor front, Cisco has the early lead in wideband module shipments for CMTS platforms, and universal edge QAMs saw quarterly growth and will continue to see significant growth throughout 2008," Showalter added.

Other highlights from the report:

--  The number of worldwide cable broadband subscribers topped 68 million
    in 2007
--  Cisco holds the lead in CMTS revenue in every region except CALA,
    where ARRIS continues to make headway among Central and South American
    cable operators
--  After a few down quarters, Motorola is getting back in the race in
    North America, where ARRIS and Cisco had been battling it out for the top
    spot in the world's largest CMTS market
--  UEQs are beginning to ship in volume, and are forecast to grow quickly
    as more MSOs use UEQs to bond downstream channels and provide more
    bandwidth for data and video services
--  Over half of all 4Q07 cable aggregation revenue comes from North
    America, about a quarter from EMEA, 14% from CALA, 10% from APAC

Infonetics' report provides worldwide and regional forecasts and market size for cable broadband subscribers split by standard vs. wideband, CMTS upstream and downstream ports and revenue, and universal edge QAM channels and revenue.

Market share is provided for Arris, BigBand, Cisco, Motorola, and others. UEQ vendors include Arris, C-Cor, GoBackTV, Harmonic, LiquidXStream, RGB Networks, Tandberg TV, Teleste, and Vecima Networks

Download report highlights by logging in to Infonetics' access portal from www.infonetics.com (see the Broadband Networks area). For sales, contact Larry Howard, vice president, at larry@infonetics.com or 1 (408) 583-3335.

Infonetics Research ( www.infonetics.com ) is an international market research and consulting firm specializing in data networking and telecom. Services include quarterly market share and forecasting, end-user survey research, service provider survey research, and service provider capex analysis.

Press Contact: Mark Showalter Directing Analyst, Broadband Networks Infonetics Research 1 408.583.3381 Email Contact