Optical transport market forecast to drop 2% in 2024: Dell’Oro Group

The optical transport equipment market has declined 13 percent year-over-year in 1Q 2024.
The optical transport market is forecast to decline by 2 percent in 2024 due to customers working through inventory and exercising controlled capital spending, according to Dell’Oro Group.

“Customer’s excess inventory of DWDM systems continued to be at the center stage of the Optical Transport market decline in the first quarter of 2024,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group.

“The steeper-than-expected drop in optical transport revenue in 1Q 2024 may have been driven by communication service providers becoming increasingly cautious about the macroeconomic conditions, causing them to delay projects into future quarters.”

The DWDM market declined in most parts of the world. The largest declines were in North America and parts of Asia Pacific. The only two markets that grew year-over-year were China and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. China grew 8 percent and MEA grew 16 percent.

Three optical transport equipment vendors — Cisco, Huawei, and ZTE — gained more than 1 percentage point of market share in 1Q 2024 compared to the year ago period.