DSL shipments saw an increase of 5% QoQ globally to a record 25 million ports, according to Dittberner’s recently released Broadband Access Shipment Report. Leader Alcatel-Lucent’s market share of 29% was a sharp drop from its 36% in Q4 2006. For the first time ever, the combined shipments of the second and third place vendors exceeded Alcatel-Lucent’s. Huawei, ZTE and Siemens all reported record shipments.
The strong growth was mainly due to the following three factors: an unexpectedly strong growth in DSL subscribers of over 12 million, driven by China’s increase of 4.1 million; a large increase in FTTB/VDSL subscribers in Japan; and the movement of two million ports in Western Europe to unbundled loops, which gave a temporary boost in shipments as incumbents retired the replaced equipment.
The top 3 suppliers, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and ZTE, all reported strong shipments into China and to Western Europe’s alternative service providers. According to James Heath, Dittberner research director, the growth in IPDSLAMs accelerated during the quarter and now comprises 72% of all DSLAMs shipped.
Huawei remained the leader with 28% of the market share. Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE, Siemens and ZyXel were the remaining top five suppliers.
In Q1 2007, the number of IPDSLAMs shipped grew by 16% while the number of ATM DSLAMs declined 13%. IPDSLAMs shipped have become the major driver in the growth of the Edge Router and Carrier Ethernet markets. One main driver of IPDSLAM growth, VDSL and VDSL2, grew to two Million ports shipped. ZyXel remained the market leader in this segment with a share of 40%.
