MAY 31, 2007--Quarter over quarter, the worldwide optical network hardware market is down 8% to $3 billion in 1Q07 from 4Q06, but is up 24% year-over-year, from 1Q06 to 1Q07, according to Infonetics Research's (search for Infonetics) latest "Optical Network Hardware" report.
The down quarter was expected as SONET/SDH equipment makes up 61% of worldwide optical equipment sales and is steadily declining in share; while its replacement -- bandwidth-rich, more flexible WDM equipment -- continues to increase in share.
"The optical hardware market is stable, with a pattern of steady growth in WDM and slow decline in SONET/SDH after 2007, a trend we forecast in early 2006," said Michael Howard, principal analyst at Infonetics Research. "Many factors are driving service providers to spend on optical equipment, especially WDM equipment, including the need for more bandwidth for broadband and IP video, revenue-generating and opex-savings projects, and upgrades to metro and long-haul networks. In addition, mergers and acquisitions resulting in the merging of large carrier networks need larger core capacities."
Market highlights include:
- Worldwide optical manufacturer revenue will grow incrementally to $12 billion in 2010.
- SONET/SDH equipment sales are forecast to decline in the single digits each year from 2008 to 2010, while WDM equipment sales will increase in the single digits each year.
- Alcatel-Lucent continues to lead overall with 22% of worldwide optical network hardware revenue market share (dropped 2 points from 4Q06), followed by Huawei and Nortel.
- Siemens leads the fast-growing long-haul ROADM switch market with 41% worldwide revenue share, followed by Infinera, then Alcatel-Lucent
- Cisco leads the worldwide metro ROADM switch market, followed closely by Fujitsu.
- In 1Q07, 36% of all optical network hardware revenue came from EMEA, 35% from North America, 24% from Asia Pacific, and 6% from CALA
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