Demand for 40-Gbps DWDM up 60%, says Dell'Oro

While the first quarter of 2012 was disappointing for optical network hardware sales according to several sources (see “Infonetics: Optical network spending slips 23% in 1Q12” and “Ovum: Bad first quarter for optical network hardware sales”), at least one segment dodged the raindrops. Dell’Oro Group says in its newly released 1Q12 Optical Transport report that demand for 40-Gbps DWDM in the quarter increased nearly 60% year-over-year.

"The optical transport equipment market had a very rough start to the year, declining nearly 5 percent year-over-year in 1Q12," said Jimmy Yu, vice president of optical transport research at Dell'Oro Group. "But on a bright side, we were happy to see the demand for 40-gigabit DWDM systems remain high. We estimate that in 1Q12, shipments of 40 gigabit line cards grew almost 60 percent, helping the DWDM market to hold another quarter of positive year-over-year growth."

Overall, WDM sales grew 5 percent in 1Q12 to $1.7 billion, with contributions from 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps wavelength shipments. Sales of 40-Gbps gear represented approximately 30 percent of the total WDM revenue in the quarter, according to the report.

Huawei shipped the most 40-Gbps wavelengths, followed in order by Ciena, Alcatel-Lucent, and NEC.

The Dell'Oro Group Optical Transport Quarterly Report covers the optical equipment market with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, unit shipments (by speed up to 100 Gbps). The report tracks DWDM long-haul terrestrial, WDM metro, multiservice multiplexers (SONET/SDH), optical switch, and optical packet platforms.