Over the last 18 months, Huawei increased their quarterly
microwave equipment revenue by over 90 percent, which now puts them within
about a point of market share from perennial leaders Ericsson and NEC as of the
second quarter of 2011.
Huawei’s most recent revenue surge firmly establishes
them as the #3 microwave equipment player in the world.
Their success can largely be attributed to the
considerable amount of higher-spectrum microwave gear they sell, particularly
23- and 38-GHz equipment, and to leveraging their contracts with their mobile
RAN and optical equipment customers,” said Richard Webb, directing analyst
for microwave at Infonetics Research.
The overall microwave equipment market edged up 2.4
percent in 2Q11 over 1Q11, to $1.3 billion worldwide, as price erosion across
most microwave market segments ate into revenue gains in Ethernet and hybrid
TDM/Ethernet microwave gear.
As carriers seek to accommodate traffic growth on their
3G networks and prepare for 4G/LTE service launches, the need for enhanced
mobile backhaul bandwidth will continue to drive the Ethernet microwave
equipment market.
In preparation for the expected need for denser
on-the-street cell topologies in 4G networks, small cell backhaul solutions are
already coming to the microwave equipment market, sporting all-outdoor ‘zero
footprint’ lower power form factors.
Microwave equipment vendors are emphasizing new higher-capacity
products, with several vendors now claiming 1G+ capacity links.
Between 2011 and 2012, global shipments of Ethernet
microwave radio equipment are forecast to double, while TDM microwave gear will
continue its inexorable decline, and the decline of hybrid TDM/Ethernet
microwave gear will accelerate.
Revenue from Ethernet microwave equipment surpassed that
of TDM microwave in 2010, and is expected to overtake hybrid TDM/Ethernet
microwave equipment by 2014.
The sharpest growth in microwave equipment spending will
come from North America between 2011 and 2015.
Market research firm Infonetics Research released
excerpts from its second quarter (2Q11) Microwave
Equipment vendor market share and forecast report, which tracks
high- and low-capacity Ethernet, hybrid, and TDM microwave equipment used in
backhaul, transport, and access networks.
The report now includes analysis and forecasts of
microwave equipment by spectrum frequency band, from 1 GigaHertz (GHz) to 59.9
GHz.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
