Times may still be tough for cable-gear vendors, but there were at least some
modest overall increases for the cable-modem crowd in the third quarter,
according to the latest figures from Kinetic Strategies Inc.
The analyst firm found that Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification
cable-modem shipments in the United States jumped 8.2 percent in the quarter,
possibly fueled by the back-to-school sales season.
That's pretty good compared with worldwide DOCSIS-modem shipments, which
faltered 3.6 percent in the quarter.
Among the vendors, Motorola Inc. came out on top, with worldwide DOCSIS-modem
shipments up 19 percent to 975,000 units and a healthy 35.6 percent market
share.
The story was different for the No. 2 competitor, Toshiba America Information
Systems Inc., which saw its modem sales drop 15 percent to 381,000 units for a
14.31 percent market share.
Coming in third was Taiwan's Ambit Microsystems Corp., which also saw
shipments drop 25 percent in the quarter to 322,800 units.
In contrast, several modem vendors increased their volumes, including Thomson
Multimedia, up 40 percent to 280,000 units. That was good enough to claim the
No. 4 spot from Scientific-Atlanta Inc., which saw DOCSIS-modem shipments tail
off 60 percent to 101,000 units -- the largest drop among modem vendors.
Terayon Communication Systems Inc. made the biggest advance, producing
175,000 DOCSIS modems, while Com21 Inc. upped its third-quarter score to 116,000
units.
