Spending on optical network equipments fell 1.7 percent year on year and 10 percent quarter on quarter to $2.95 billion in the third quarter of 2015, according to IHS as the market was pulled down by EMEA and CALA regions.
Interestingly, the global optical network equipment market surged 21 percent in the second quarter of 2015.
“The previous three quarters’ results for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) indicated the first reversal of poor optical spending since 2009. However, third quarter results are less favorable, with a 5 percent year-over-year decline. We assume this is a short-term setback and the recovery will continue. However, we will monitor this closely,” said Alex Green, senior research director for IT and networking at IHS.
Asia Pacific, the largest optical network hardware market in the world, fell 0.2 percent, as Japan has yet to invest in the 100G networks.
Optical network equipment market in North America rose 3 percent.
WDM equipment spending increased 4 percent.
Spending on SDH/SONET optical hardware fell 27 percent. IHS says spending on SDH/SONET optical hardware will decline to over $500 million by 2019 from $2.17 billion in 2014.
All annual growth in optical network hardware market will come from the WDM segment. IHS says WDM segment will reach $6.8 billion in 2019.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com