Industry news:
Cable modem shipments hit
nearly 2 million units in Q2
SAN JOSE -- Component shortages held back cable modem production in the second quarter, but worldwide shipments
still totaled nearly 2 million units, Dataquest says.
While many vendors did well in the quarter, some vendors could not fulfill demand because of a shortage on key parts
such as radio frequency tuners, and flash memory. "Most vendors reported that they could have shipped at least
30-to-35% more of the brand band cable access devices," reports Patti Reali, Dataquest analyst. Those that did well,
she adds, were those suppliers that diversified their component sourcing. "They picked up the slack from vendors that
could not deliver against demand," she notes.
Motorola Broadband Communications continued to lead the vendors with 32.5% of the market. The company was also
the leading supplier in the DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) market, but Reali believes that it will
be getting a lot more competition here as more vendors enter this product area. Cable customer-premise equipment
(CPE), which is based on the DOCSIS standard, continues to show the most growth, she says, and is outshipping
proprietary devices by more than two to one. DOCSIS accounted for 68% of worldwide cable modem shipments in the
second quarter, Reali says. Of these shipments, 31% were proprietary. DVB/DAVIC (Digital Video Broadcasting/Digital
Audio-Visual Council) cable modems amount to 0.4% shipments.
Component shortages should ease during the remainder of this year, with cable modems expected to grow 40% in the
third quarter and 45% in the final three months, Dataquest predicts. If the market does grow as expected, worldwide
cable modem shipments this year will total 10 million units, Reali says.
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