ZTE share dips in broadband access equipment market, says Ovum

Telecom market research agency Ovum today said ZTE lost significant market share in the total broadband access equipment market in 2013.

Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Adtran gained maximum share in the broadband access equipment market last year.

Huawei continues to lead the market with 28 percent share, Ovum said.

The wireline broadband access equipment market declined 23 percent to $5.42 billion.

DSL equipment revenues declined 28 percent as the decline in ADSL was not offset by VDSL. PON equipment revenues were down by 24 percent, reflecting the lack of a major, new FTTH deployment.

Ovum says 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 American and Western Europe as communications service providers continue to upgrade copper-based networks.

Vectoring trials will continue throughout 2014 and we expect more announcements regarding commercial availability, similar to the recent announcement by Belgacom.

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. We expect 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.

Julie Kunstler, principal analyst, said: “While pricing pressures will continue, we expect strong shipments in vectoring ready VDSL, PON ONTs/ONUs and CMTS.”

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