Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Cignal AI: Optical hardware spending on the rise

Optical hardware spending grew in every region and for every business segment during 2Q19, according to the most recent Optical Hardware Report from research firm Cignal AI. Huawei retained top market share worldwide and held steady despite a slowdown in China and increasing competitive and political pressures.

“Huawei managed to retain market share in what is typically its strongest quarter of the year,” said Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst at Cignal AI. “Despite the export ban of many optical components and the reports of competitive wins against Huawei in EMEA and APAC, Huawei market share remained steady.”



Additional Key Findings in Cignal AI's 2Q19 Optical Hardware Report:

  • WDM Long Haul Spending Up – Long haul spending recovered in every region except Japan, as compact modular equipment and new high-speed coherent optics impact investments.
  • WDM Metro Declines in North America But Grows in All Other Regions – Factors contributing to the NA decline are the lower price per bit of new high-speed optics and competing priorities like the 5G rollout.
  • SONET/SDH Hangs On – Growth in APAC and EMEA offset SONET/SDH’s ongoing decline in NA. This growth comes from expansions and upgrades to existing networks; there are no new builds.
  • China’s Growth Slows — Growth in China appears dramatic due to the ZTE shutdown and the absence of revenue a year ago. Excluding ZTE’s results, growth slowed.
  • Coherent Optic Shipments Tracking to Reach Nearly 1 Million 100G Equivalent Ports in 2019 – This represents a 40% increase in bandwidth over 2018.
  • Regional trends - This quarter marked a turnaround for CALA, reversing multiple quarters of decline with a YoY surge of 30%. EMEA also grew with expansion across all product segments. Overall growth in North America was minor and would have been negative again if not for an enormous SLTE revenue increase this quarter. Finally, the rapid expansion in Japan for the past few quarters settled down to a more moderate pace with Ciena, NEC, and Huawei as the prime beneficiaries.

Cignal AI also offers an interactive Optical Hardware Market Share Tracker to clients of the Optical Hardware Report and provides quarterly up-to-date market data for real-time visibility on individual vendors’ results as they are released.

https://cignal.ai/2019/08/growth-returns-as-optical-hardware-spending-increases-in-every-region/