DOCSIS Channel Shipments Soar In Q2

Buoyed by IP capacity expansions, the number of upstream and downstream DOCSIS channel shipments reached 1.2 million in the second quarter of 2014, a new quarterly record that stomped the one set in the first quarter of the year, Infonetics Research said in its latest roundup of the cable access sector.

Infonetics noted that this was also the first time those channel shipments eclipsed the 1 million market for the first time. That figure factors in sales of  DOCSIS-powered cable modem termination systems (CMTSs), Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) products, which aim to combine the CMTS and edge QAM functions, and Coax Media Converters (CMCs) -- stripped down CMTSs that don’t support the core routing functions typically found in a CMTS that are gaining steam in markets such as China and represent a product class that has been integrated with the primary CableLabs DOCSIS specifications.

Combined revenue for CCAP, CMTS, edge QAM and CMC equipment reached $411 million worldwide, up 24% from the previous quarter, the company noted.

Infonetics also found that global CCAP revenue climbed another 42% sequentially in the second quarter as MSOs continue to migrate to the higher density platform and take advantage of their lower per-channel prices. The push to CCAP is most acute in North America, which  saw revenue in the category rise 39% in the second quarter versus the previous quarter.

“The velocity of the shift from CMTS to CCAP remains phenomenal," Jeff Heynen, Infonetics’ principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV, said in a statement.

Infonetics did not initially announce how the market share leaders ranked in the second quarter, but did note that Arris, Casa Systems and Cisco Systems once again comprised the top three. Multichannel News will provide an update on the vendor leaderboard once those specifics are known.

According to Infonetics' report for the first quarter of 2014,  Arris was tops in terms of revenue share with 37%, followed by Cisco Systems (32%) , Casa Systems (21%), and Harmonic (7%).