2026 Market Survey:  Fixed Wireless Access CPE

FWA CPE Shipment Trends

• 2026 shipments are expected to grow 16% to reach 23 million units. Reported 2025 total CPE shipments were 20 million, a 16% increase compared to 2024.

• The majority of FWA shipments are 5G-enabled, reaching 12 million in 2025. The growth of 5G FWA CPE shipments is expected to grow to 16 million, accounting for 69% of 2026 shipments and compared to 60% in 2025.

• North America accounts for 28% of the 2025 shipments, followed by Africa at 21%. India and North America lead the share of 5G CPE shipments at 99% and 97% respectively.

• The majority of FWA CPE shipments in 2025 were integrated indoor CPE (57%), followed by outdoor CPE (25%) and battery-operated hotspots (18%). 46% of the outdoor CPE were flexible self install indoor/outdoor CPEs during 2025.

• FWA supporting 5G standalone (SA) adoption stood at 96% of 5G FWA shipments in 2025 and are expected to grow 34% to 15.4 million in 2026 compared to 11.5 million in 2025.

• 5G RedCap shipments are expected to grow ~4x in 2026 to 800 thousand, representing ~5% of 5G shipments

• mmWave capable 5G CPE shipments reached 350 thousand in 20

FWA CPE Market Trends

• 93% of vendors being affected by inflationary/memory chip price increases, which will lead to major impact (affecting pricing increases over 10%). 47% expect issues to dissipate in 2027

• The majority of vendors believe that the main benefit of introducing 5G FWA CPE that has AI capabilities would lead to an improved performance and experience of WiFi/In-home and 5G connectivity

• 53% of respondents have or plan to launch 5G RedCap devices in 2026

• Majority of CPE vendors with a module strategy to source from more than one third party vendor (80% for 2026). Similarly, chipset sourcing strategy also to include more than one chipset vendor over 85% of respondents.

• Increased support for 8RX, with over 50% of respondents either already have (27%) or plan to launch in 2026 (27%) a 5G FWA devices with 8RX support in their portfolio

• Price parity of 5G and LTE CPEs to be reached at later years with 53% expecting it to be reached in the coming 3 years compared to 82% in last years' survey.