Linksys is the first company to sell more than 100 million routers

Linksys announced it has sold more than 100 million wired and wireless routers globally. Linksys pioneered the home router back in December 1999 when it shipped the first consumer grade router, the EtherFast Broadband Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port Switch – BEFSR41. 

 This router revolutionized how consumers would share an internet connection in their home.  Today, 16 years later and with more than 60 different routers connecting hundreds of millions of people and devices to the internet; Linksys has hit the milestone few technology products have achieved. 

“The 100 million milestone of any product is something to celebrate,” said Mike Chen, vice president, product management, Linksys. “For a router to hit this accomplishment in the same company as smartphones, game consoles, MP3 players, tablets and e-readers, shows how crucial sharing an internet connection has become. When Linksys introduced the first consumer grade router at Comdex in 1999, we never would have imagined it would have such a critical role for connecting the Internet of Things in the home.”

According to forecasts by Industry Research firm IDC, by 2017, consumers worldwide will be using 9.8 billion devices capable of connecting to a home network router. The router has evolved over the past 16 years from wired routers to the different wireless standards – Wireless-B, Wireless-G, Wireless-N, and Wireless-AC with the latest technology enhancements such as tri-band and MU-MIMO technology, which Linksys plans to ship first in a few weeks. Throughout the history of network connections in the home, Linksys has been a part of all if it.