Alcatel nabs largest optical transport market share in 2001, says RHK

Jan. 28, 2002

January 28, 2002--The total global optical transport market netted $28.2 billion in 2001, down from its $33-billion mark in 2000, claims new research from market research firm RHK Inc. (San Francisco). Alcatel nabbed the largest market share in 2001, capturing 16%, followed by Lucent at 12% and Nortel at 11%.

The total global optical transport market netted $28.2 billion in 2001, down from its $33-billion mark in 2000, claims new research from market research firm RHK Inc. (San Francisco). Alcatel nabbed the largest market share in 2001, capturing 16%, followed by Lucent at 12% and Nortel at 11%.

"Although the North American and undersea optical transport segments were hit hard this past year, we foresee growth of at least 15% in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and African regions," asserts Stephane Teral, director of European and Global Optical Transport at RHK. "We expect the European market size to remain the same in 2002. Globally, it will be the incumbent PTTs and Bell companies that continue to dominate spending through 2002," he adds.

Current economic conditions have "resulted in a changing picture of market sales," claims RHK. Despite a decline in undersea systems sales, the worldwide exposure of its terrestrial Optinex products and its broad customer base helped Alcatel capture the largest market share in 2001. Nortel held the number one position in 2000, but declining sales pushed the company into third position in 2001.

Lucent ranked second behind Alcatel with 12% of the total market, propelled by the introduction of the LambdaRouter and strong deployment of its bandwidth manager. Fujitsu held onto a 10% share to rank fourth behind Nortel. Moving into fifth place was Ciena, whose CoreDirector optical core switch and WDM products helped the company capture 6% of the market, up from 3% the previous year. Other top vendors included NEC, Marconi, Siemens, Tyco, Tellabs, Huawei, and Cisco.

"The market with the strongest growth remains China," contends Teral. "Here, we see the local vendors going from strength to strength: Huawei has emerged as the country's strongest maker--and it now has significant impact and potential in Europe."

The new findings are part of RHK's continuous information program, "Optical Networks: Global Program," and are based on interviews with more than 30 terrestrial and undersea optical transport vendors and 40 service providers. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.rhk.com.