The latest research from Telecompaper has revealed that the Mobile Broadband modem market, which includes USB Modem (Dongle) devices, PC Cards, ExpressCards and internal cellular modems for laptops and netbooks, reached around 10.5m units in Western Europe in 2008, which compares with 4.3m in 2007. The market remains dominated by two Chinese manufacturers, Huawei and ZTE.

It's estimated that there were 18.3m mobile data modem subscribers in Western Europe last year (3.6% of the global total), with a staggering 62% of those being situated in the UK, Germany and Italy. The rapid growth has been put down to a combination of factors, chiefly lower pricing for both services and hardware, not to mention better marketing and performance.

Predictions indicate that, over the next five years, demand for Mobile Broadband modems will foster a compound annual growth rate (cagr) of 19% and reach shipments of 25m units by 2013. Embedded modems, such as those found pre-installed with Netbook computers, are expected to overtake purchases of external adapters by 2012.