Optical Network Hardware Market Notches Fastest-Growing 4th Quarter in 5 Years

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The global optical network equipment market totaled $12.5 billion in 2015, growing 3 percent from the prior year, reports IHS Inc. in its Optical Network Hardware Market Tracker. 

“After a subdued 3Q15, this quarter’s results represent a much-needed boost to the optical hardware market, with revenues demonstrating the fastest-growing fourth quarter for five years. Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent, in particular, performed well in the quarter, both gaining significantly in share compared to 3Q15,” said Alex Green, senior research director for IT and networking at IHS.   

MORE OPTICAL HARDWARE MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• In the 4^th quarter of 2015 (4Q15), worldwide optical spending was $3.5 billion, up 17 percent sequentially, and up 10 percent from the year-ago quarter (4Q14)
• Spending on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) equipment in 4Q15 totaled $3.1 billion, up 18 percent from 4Q14
• EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) has not yet come out of its era of slow optical spending, showing a rolling quarter decline of 3 percent in 4Q15
• And in North America there was somewhat of a bounce back in Q4 after a flat Q3, with the region seeing 5 percent rolling 4-quarter growth
• For the full-year 2015, the top 5 optical hardware market share leaders are, in rank order, Huawei, Ciena, Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE and Infinera