Global shipments for mobile broadband modems and hotspot router shipments are expected to decline by 24% by year-end 2014, suggests a new report from Strategy Analytics.
The latest figure is much more of a decline compared to the 17% decline in 2013 to nearly 87 million units, according to Strategy Analytics’ "Cellular Mobile Broadband OEM Vendor Market Share 2005-2014" report.
The broadband modem market has been hit with the declining PC market and carriers bundling tablets with smartphones and offering subsidies or additional service; offering economical SIM-only data plans, extending modem lifecycles, second-hand modem market and shared data plan tariffs across several devices.
Strategy Analytics Enterprise Research executive director Andrew Brown said: "It was no surprise that USB modem sticks and embedded PC modem modules continue to lead the two year decline, while the continued growth in Wi-Fi-enabled CE devices saw mobile hotspot routers continue to be the bright point in an otherwise gloomy market."
"Revenues associated with mobile broadband modems fell in 2013 to just below US$7 billion, down 22% from just under US$9 billion in 2012. In 2014 the market will decrease to almost half the revenue the market had displayed in 2010."
Huawei is set to top the vendor list with 45% unit share and together with ZTE, the top Chinese vendors have been transporting more than 80% of all mobile broadband modems.
