According to Dell'Oro Group's recently released "4Q17 Optical Transport Quarterly Report," WDM metro equipment revenue exceeded $7 billion in 2017. Huawei, ZTE, and Ciena led the metro WDM market during 2017.
Overall optical transport revenue up 19% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. The market research firm reports that WDM metro revenue was a significant driver of this growth, with sales increasing 30% year-over-year in the fourth quarter.
Cisco, ECI Telecom, and ZTE were the three vendors that increased their WDM metro revenue by over 40% in 2017. The majority of WDM metro revenue growth for the year was in the Asia Pacific and Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA).
"The WDM metro systems market jumped in 2017," said Jimmy Yu, Dell'Oro Group vice president. "We all knew that demand for WDM systems in metro applications would increase, but it was a huge surprise to see an 18% revenue increase in 2017."
As predicted by Dell'Oro Group last January, WDM, in its various forms, continued to drive optical transport equipment sales. At the time, the firm expected interest in the technology would continue driving revenues to $15 billion by 2021 (see "WDM to drive optical transport equipment market to $15 billion in 2021: Dell'Oro").
Additionally, coherent line card demand continued to increase at a high rate, with nearly 185 thousand coherent line cards shipped for metro applications last year, the report states.
Dell'Oro's "Optical Transport Quarterly Report" provides coverage of the market with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, unit shipments (by speed including 40 Gbps, 100 Gbps, 200 Gbps, and 400 Gbps). The report tracks DWDM long haul terrestrial, WDM metro, multiservice multiplexers (SONET/SDH), optical switch, optical packet platforms, and data center interconnect (metro and long haul).
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