The PON market posted record revenues of almost $800 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to a new report by Dell’Oro Group. The continued upward trajectory of the market was driven largely by growing fiber deployments in China, reveals the report.
“We estimate that China accounted for more than half of total GPON revenues in the fourth quarter,” says Tam Dell’Oro, President of Dell’Oro Group. “Chinese operators initially utilized EPON when fiber deployments began a couple of years ago, but have increasingly utilized GPON over the last several quarters. We now expect that GPON will become the leading PON technology in China within the next few years due to its higher bandwidth capabilities and functionality.”
The top three GPON vendors in the fourth quarter were: Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent, and Ericsson. While Chinese vendor, Huawei, remained the top PON supplier in its domestic market, non-Chinese vendors Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson also derived substantial portions of their fourth quarter GPON revenues from shipments to China. Alcatel-Lucent benefited from being a leading supplier for Verizon’s FiOS, which also accounted for a significant 15 percent of total GPON revenues.