The worldwide market for telecom infrastructure equipment will exceed $109.9 billion in 2011, increasing at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2%, reveals new research from IDC (www.idc.com). Network equipment sales to service providers performed strongly during the first half of 2007, driven by revenue growth from optical transport, broadband access, and routing and switching equipment.
“Consolidation of major networks and overall network expansion enabling increased wireless backhaul and video distribution to multiple screens will continue to spur service provider investments on new infrastructure for the foreseeable future,” explains David Emberley, research manager for telecommunications equipment at IDC.
The major findings of IDC’s worldwide equipment forecast include the following:
- Optical networking will reach $13.7 billion at the end of 2011, with the fastest growth expected in the metro WDM space.
- The IP router and switch segment will continue to experience double-digit growth rates year over year.
- The access market will reach $8.5 billion by 2011.
- The wireless share of the telecom infrastructure market will decline to less than half by 2011 as service providers increased investment in wireline infrastructure.
- Legacy systems including DLCs, ATM switches, and SONET/SDH will keep declining through 2011, as carriers continue to migrate their networks to an all-IP architecture.
IDC’s study, “Worldwide Telecommunications Equipment 2007—2011 Forecast Update,” provides forecasts by technology segment as well as by major geographic regions.