The top three important factors U.S. consumers cited in their purchasing decisions of Broadband Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) were speed, security, and Wi-Fi wireless range, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.
The least important features were product brand, followed by "green" environmental friendliness. Meaning, it's a typical commodity consumer electronics product category.
"While companies are marketing their "green" equipment features, the message doesn't appear to be resonating with consumers," says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. "Consumers want performance and security."
It's not clear from the survey result if In-Stat asked about ease-of-use preferences, since poor device configuration design is often cited in prior consumer surveys of broadband CPE.
The research also reveals that while 2008 was the slowest total global broadband (CPE) market growth of the decade, 2009 will be even slower. Fortunately, select segments of the market are performing better in 2009 than the overall market.
These include VoIP-enabled routers and DSL CPE, cable gateways, and Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) gateways and Optical Network Terminals (ONTs), and Fixed Wireless Broadband CPE.
In-Stat's market study found the following:
- The FTTH CPE segment, which includes ONTs and FTTH Gateways, will see a nearly 20 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) through 2013.
- In-Stat expects global installed PC-based home networks to grow by a little more than 19 percent in 2009, driven by the continued, but slower, rise in the number of residential broadband subscribers, the desire to share that bandwidth, sometimes free network equipment, and the desire to share content.
- The majority of global FWB subscribers are WiMAX. Asia-Pacific has the lead in FWB subscribers and CPE shipments, followed by Europe. In 2011, Asia-Pacific should capture over 50 percent share of the annual FWB CPE shipments.
