Anyone who's ever tried to shop for a new router and gotten lost in the sea of model numbers and price points knows the frustration. What's less obvious is that the market itself has been quietly shrinking. According to research from Counterpoint Research, global consumer Wi-Fi router shipments have declined year-over-year for four consecutive years, from 2022 through 2025, falling 34% below their 2021 peak. That trend hasn't let up in Q1 2026 either, with shipments contracting a further 6% year-over-year. Behind the decline in router purchases as a standalone act lies a broader shift: carriers increasingly bundling routers directly into service contracts.
Inside the 6% decline: TP-Link and Xiaomi falter while only ASUS, Google, and Eero grow
Looking at the Q1 2026 shipment data by vendor, the contraction isn't spread evenly across the industry. Despite TP-Link and Xiaomi together holding roughly 33% of global shipments in what amounts to a duopoly, both companies posted year-over-year declines. According to Counterpoint Research, Xiaomi shipments fell 1.3%, Netgear fell 3%, and market leader TP-Link fell a steeper 5.4%—with the decline more pronounced among the larger vendors. Since the two volume leaders that have long anchored the market's bulk are themselves shrinking, whether that roughly 6% decline persists into Q2 and beyond will be the key gauge of where the market's floor actually is.
The only vendors to post growth were ASUS (+3.8%), Google (+1.2%), and Amazon's Eero. Eero's specific growth rate wasn't disclosed, but what these three companies share is a product lineup weighted toward high-value categories like mesh Wi-Fi and gaming routers. ASUS has concentrated development resources on its ROG-branded gaming routers, while Google has focused on mesh products in its Nest Wifi lineup. TP-Link and Xiaomi, by contrast, have built their global share primarily around mass-market price points. Even the "other" category—covering smaller vendors not tracked individually—fell 10.4%, showing the decline extends well beyond the major brands. In a shrinking market overall, only the vendors that successfully shifted from volume to value managed to beat last year's numbers.
Verifying the factors Counterpoint cites, using T-Mobile as a case study
Counterpoint Research's report points to moves on the ISP side as context for the 6% decline: carriers improving their own broadband equipment to keep control of the home network, and carriers beginning to offer mesh Wi-Fi systems while investing in the latest Wi-Fi technology. A simple explanation rooted in the post-pandemic demand hangover from 2021 doesn't fully account for four straight years of decline from 2022 through 2025, or for the fact that the trend has continued into Q1 2026—these two factors point to a structural pressure distinct from any pandemic rebound.
T-Mobile's recent moves offer a concrete illustration of the report's point. On November 13, 2025, US carrier T-Mobile revamped its 5G Home Internet service into a three-tier plan structure, bundling a new Wi-Fi 7-capable gateway as standard with its $60/month Amplified plan and $70/month All-In plan. The $70 plan even throws in Hulu and Paramount+ subscriptions. At ¥162.4 to the dollar (as of July 8, 2026), that works out to roughly ¥9,700 to ¥11,370 per month—a single contract covering connectivity, the gateway, and streaming. This overhaul falls squarely within the quarter immediately preceding the Q1 2026 shipment data.
Under this model, consumers no longer need to separately buy a router from an electronics retailer or Amazon. The very demand that TP-Link and Xiaomi have relied on—cheap, standalone routers—gets absorbed at the point of contract signing. Looking only at shipment volume, it might appear that demand itself has evaporated, but it makes more sense to read this as a shift in purchasing channel, from standalone router sales to ISP contracts—a framing that better fits four consecutive years of decline. T-Mobile is just one carrier among many, and the more carriers that adopt similar bundling strategies, the further the floor for the standalone router market will keep dropping.
Whether you interpret the market's contraction as "demand disappearing" or as "sales channels shifting" leads to entirely different strategies for vendors. If it's the former, a new product launch could reverse the trend; if it's the latter, survival hinges on partnering with ISPs or specializing in features that standard ISP equipment can't match. ASUS, Google, and Eero chose the latter path, and that choice is reflected in the Q1 2026 numbers.
Why only mesh and gaming routers are bucking the downward trend
The growth posted by ASUS, Google, and Eero stems from the fact that mesh Wi-Fi and gaming routers occupy territory that standard ISP bundles can't fully cover. That said, it's not entirely untouched ground. T-Mobile's All-In plan actually includes one Wi-Fi 7-capable mesh extender, and Counterpoint Research's report explicitly notes that ISPs are beginning to offer mesh Wi-Fi systems. Even so, ASUS, Google, and Eero maintain an edge because while T-Mobile caps its bundle at a single Wi-Fi 7 mesh extender, third-party products offer the flexibility to add two, three, or more extenders depending on the size of the home.
Gaming routers follow a similar pattern. To minimize packet loss and latency during online matches, they come equipped with Quality of Service (QoS) features to prioritize traffic, plenty of wired ports, and dedicated management apps. ISP gateways often lack this level of granular control, so latency-sensitive users aren't satisfied with the standard-issue equipment and end up buying something additional. In other words, these two categories sit just outside the line ISPs draw between "what we'll give away for free" and "what customers will still pay extra for."
Mesh extenders communicate with each other either wirelessly or via a wired backhaul using LAN cables. Since bandwidth degrades the more extenders you add wirelessly, the number and placement of extenders needs to be tailored to a home's size and wall construction—requiring specialized knowledge and a broad product lineup. As with T-Mobile's example, ISP-standard gateways are often limited to a single-extender setup, so third-party products retain an advantage in larger homes that need multiple units. Still, as ISPs ramp up investment in mesh technology, this advantage isn't a permanent safe zone—it's a boundary that's gradually being eroded.
Waiting for Wi-Fi 8: another factor holding back purchases
Wi-Fi 8, expected to launch in late 2026, is affecting this stagnant market from a different angle entirely. TP-Link has announced its first Wi-Fi 8-capable router, the Archer 8, targeting an October 2026 launch—contingent on approval from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). However, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), which develops the underlying 802.11bn standard, isn't expected to formally ratify it until September 2028, meaning early products like the Archer 8 will hit the market ahead of a finalized standard.
As Network World has reported, Wi-Fi 8 isn't being positioned around the kind of dramatic speed gains that defined past generational shifts—it's prioritizing connection stability and low latency instead. Unlike the jump from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 7, where speed was the main battleground, this is a generational shift where the real-world difference is harder to perceive, yet the mere fact that the standard's name is changing is enough to make consumers hesitate on upgrades. If your current router still works, there's a natural pull toward simply waiting until the standard is finalized in 2028.
The fact that TP-Link rushed to announce the Archer 8 is itself a decision made with full awareness of the risk of launching ahead of a finalized IEEE standard—and it leaves room for other vendors to sit on the sidelines until the standard is settled. On top of the reduced need for standalone purchases driven by ISP bundling, this transitional uncertainty around the standard gives consumers a second reason to delay buying.
In Japan, "not buying" a router has long been the norm
T-Mobile's bundling strategy might look like a uniquely American phenomenon, but it's actually a fairly familiar setup for Japanese consumers. Major fiber-optic providers like NTT East/West's Flet's Hikari, au Hikari, and SoftBank Hikari have long bundled ONU (optical network units) and Wi-Fi router-equipped home gateways for a rental fee in the range of ¥300 to ¥500 per month. Since this ends up cheaper than buying a standalone router, sticking with the bundled equipment at contract signing has become the default choice. In other words, rather than Japanese consumers being on the verge of experiencing US-style ISP bundling for the first time, they've effectively been living under a similar model for years already.
What this suggests is that the main battleground for the consumer Wi-Fi router market is narrowing toward a segment of users who aren't satisfied with the standard equipment that comes bundled with their contract. The reason domestic vendors like BUFFALO and IODATA still maintain a solid presence on electronics store shelves in Japan is that there's still unmet demand—people who want signal reaching every corner of an apartment, or who want to shave milliseconds off their online gaming latency—that standard-issue equipment can't satisfy. The same logic behind ASUS, Google, and Eero's winning formula in the US has effectively already been playing out in the Japanese market.
If there's a difference, it's that T-Mobile's monthly plans bundle in streaming subscriptions on top of everything else, while Japan's low-cost fiber rental model sticks strictly to connectivity. The wider the scope of bundling gets, the narrower the pool of consumers with a reason to choose a standalone router becomes. Around 2028, as the Wi-Fi 8 standard settles into place, how firmly this two-tier structure—ISP-standard equipment on one side, niche high-value equipment on the other—ends up locked in will be the next turning point for this market.