Jan. 15, 2002?According to a new research study, ElectroniCast (San Mateo, CA) estimates global consumption of fiber optic component assembly equipment plus related test units will advance from $722 million in 2000 to $1.71 billion in 2005.

Manual assembly products in 2000 held a 20% share of equipment value; plus an additional 8% of nominally manual assembly products integrated into semi-automated equipment. Expectations are that between 2000 and 2005, fully automated equipment value share will expand from 2% to 7%, and semi-automated share will expand from 69% to 74%.

According to Jeff D. Montgomery, ElectroniCast Chairman and Founder, "The challenge of converting from manual to semi- or fully automated assembly of fiber optics is to achieve a high enough production volume to amortize the assembly line cost at a low cost per unit."

Citing the lack of a substantial number of vendors in 2000-2002 with production rates of 1,000 per day or more of any product family, Montgomery defines the near-term challenge is to develop product-specific automated assembly lines to sell at an appropriate price level that can be amortized with low-priced components.