The number of mobile broadband modem shipments – including USB modems, PC Card modems and wireless routers - grew more than 55% last year, according to ABI Research. That's over 25 million more units, up from 2008's total of 46.4 million to the 2009 total of over 72 million.
ABI's figures show Chinese manufacturer Huawei is the market leader, supplying 54.3% of the world's USB modems and almost half of all PC modems and routers.
Jeff Orr, senior analysist at ABI Research, said "The USB modem continues to flourish. They remain amazingly popular. 2009 was actually a good year considering we were in a recession: there was somewhat surprising year-over-year growth in both shipments and revenue. And at the end of 2009 there was a surge of consumer adoption. Business adoption was less robust."