The global optical network equipment market totalled $12.5 billion in 2015, growing 3 per cent from the year before, reports IHS in its Optical Network Hardware Market Tracker.
In the fourth quarter of 2015 (4Q15), worldwide optical spending was $3.5 billion, up 17 per cent sequentially, and up 10 per cent from the year-ago quarter.
“After a subdued 3Q15, this quarter’s results represent a much-needed boost to the optical hardware market, with revenues demonstrating the fastest-growing fourth quarter for five years,” said Alex Green, senior research director for IT and networking at IHS.
Spending on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) equipment in 4Q15 totalled $3.1 billion, up 18 per cent from 4Q14.
However, the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region has not yet come out of its era of slow optical spending, showing a rolling quarter decline of 3 per cent in 4Q15.
In North America there was somewhat of a bounce back in Q4 after a flat Q3, with the region seeing 5 per cent rolling four-quarter growth
For the full-year 2015, the top five optical hardware market share leaders are, in rank order: Huawei, Ciena, Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia), ZTE and Infinera.
Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent, in particular, performed well in the quarter, both gaining significantly in market share compared to 3Q15.
IHS’ quarterly optical network hardware report provides worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts through 2020, analysis and trends for metro and long haul WDM and SONET/SDH equipment, Ethernet optical ports, SONET/SDH/POS ports and WDM ports.
