Shipments of 400ZR/ZR+ optical transceivers built significant momentum in the fourth quarter of 2021 ahead of what promises to be a big year in 2022, Cignal AI states in its recently released 4Q21 Transport Applications Report. The market research firms predicts that shipments of such optical modules will triple this year as production ramps up to serve pent-up demand.
Acacia Communications (now part of Cisco) and Marvell increased production of 400ZR/ZR+ transceivers in 4Q21, Cignal AI notes. Ciena, NeoPhotonics (whose sale to Lumentum is pending), and II-VI are expected to drive similar production increases this year – which will be good news for such cloud operators as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google who are expected to be major adopters of the pluggable coherent modules. Meanwhile, Cignal AI expects an increasing number of communications services providers to deploy 400ZR/ZR+ optical transceivers as well. An increasing number of operators in both categories are receiving these modules directly, says the market research firm.
"Both webscale and telco operators are making fundamental changes to their network architectures due to the availability of pluggable 400G coherent modules,” said Scott Wilkinson, lead optical component analyst at Cignal AI. “Module shipments are ramping up quickly, with more than half of all shipments to date coming in the fourth quarter.”
In other areas covered by the report, Cignal AI reported that Ciena remains the largest supplier of Gen90P (see chart above) 800G-capable coherent ports, with Infinera seeing rapid increase in ICE6 product shipments. North American sales of compact modular platforms increased 25% in 2021 and now represent more than a third of the region’s optical hardware shipments. This achievement was good news for Ciena, the segment’s market leader.
However, 2021 wasn’t kind to packet-OTN hardware, with Huawei the only company to see sales in this space grow in 2021. Nokia is the West’s leading vendor in packet-OTN, which positions it as the most likely beneficiary of Huawei replacement activities in Europe, Cignal AI feels.
Cignal AI’s Transport Applications Report covers what the company describes as “the transformative product segments of the optical and packet transport markets.” Information includes market share and forecasts of compact modular, packet-OTN, and optical line systems as well as coherent port shipments. Vendors examined include Adtran, ADVA, Ciena, Cisco, Ekinops, Fujitsu, Huawei, Infinera, Marvell, NEC, Nokia, NTT Electronics (NEL), Ribbon, and ZTE.
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