Telecom vendor Ericsson is leading the microwave equipment market in the third quarter of 2013. Huawei has reclaimed second position from NEC, said Infonetics Research.
Alcatel-Lucent and ZTE are the other two major microwave equipment vendors in Q3.
The global microwave equipment market size declined 7 percent to $1.16 billion from Q3 2012 and increased 2 percent from Q2 2013.
A telecom analysis by Infonetics shows that all-packet microwave accounted for around 23 percent of total microwave equipment revenue.
In coming years, LTE-Advanced upgrades and small cell deployments will drive the growth of microwave equipment revenue, the report said.
The overall microwave equipment market will grow at 1.4 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2012-2017, as the healthy growth of Ethernet microwave is masked by the disappearing TDM microwave segment and the rapidly declining dual Ethernet/TDM microwave segment.
In 2013, the microwave equipment market will dip due to price erosion in the hybrid equipment segment in particular.
“The next round of backhaul market growth will be driven by macro LTE-Advanced upgrades and small cell deployments, both of which will require very low latency solutions. This will begin to make an impact from 2014 and boost the market for a few years,” said Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and carrier Wi-Fi at Infonetics Research.