Mobile Hotspot Router Market Booming For Huawei & ZTE
Sales of mobile broadband devices, including cellular USB modems,
mobile hotspot devices, PC cards, and embedded PC modems, grew by an impressive
15 percent in 2011, after several years of strong growth.
This increase was driven by a strong desire for ubiquitous connectivity, emerging LTE networks and sales of tablets and other CE devices, according to the new Strategy Analytics report, "Mobile Broadband Devices: OEM Competitive Market Analysis Shipments and Revenue for Embedded and External Modems."
Mobile broadband device sales reached 112 million units in 2011, up 15 percent over 2011. Highly competitive pricing was driven by the major Chinese OEMs and resulted in significantly lower Average Selling Prices in 2011.
Major Chinese vendors, Huawei and ZTE, continued to dominate the overall market in 2011, increasing their combined market share to more than 80 percent in 2011.
Also, global cellular hotspot routers, known as Mi-Fi, provided major growth opportunities for top OEMs, including Huawei, Novatel and ZTE, especially in the United States.
"The simultaneous success of tablet sales and affordable data plan
offerings on high-speed carrier networks, along with user desire for ubiquitous
connectivity, drove a massive 96 percent 2011 growth in cellular mobile
hotspots," noted Andrew Brown, Director Enterprise Research at Strategy
Analytics.
"Strategy Analytics expects to see the mobile hotspot market
continue on this growth trajectory to comprise a fifth of all external modem
shipments by the end of 2012," he added.
