Worldwide optical-network hardware revenue increased 16% in last year's fourth quarter but fell 15% for the entire year at $8.4 billion. Passive-optical-networking (PON) revenue meanwhile surged 240% from 2002 to '03 to net $182 million, reveals a recent study from Infonetics Research (San Jose, CA).
"The fourth quarter of 2003 was a great quarter for optical hardware, as this segment enjoyed the benefits of an especially big year-end service-provider capex flush," reports Michael Howard, principal analyst and Infonetics co-founder. "Metro SONET/SDH and WDM were strong, driven by increased corporate network traffic, storage networking, and service-provider wireless-network backhaul."PON is growing rapidly in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in Japan, where hundreds of thousands of subscribers are using Ethernet PON and ATM-based PON, says Howard. The technology is slowly taking off in North America, "mostly in new home builds and in neighborhoods where the copper plant is being rehabilitated," he explains. "We expect PON to continue expanding rapidly through 2007." The report also finds that:
- Alcatel led the worldwide optical-network hardware market in the fourth quarter, with Fujitsu and Nortel Networks tied for second.
- Worldwide revenue for metro WDM increased 34% from '02 to '03, with Nortel and ADVA capturing first and second, respectively.
- SONET/SDH composed 69% of worldwide optical equipment sales last year.
- The intelligent segment was 82% of all optical-network hardware revenue last year. By 2007, legacy hardware is expected to decline to 1%.
- Metro revenue accounted for 67% of all optical-network hardware revenue last year, while long-haul made up 33%.
For more information about the report, "Optical Network Hardware and PON Hardware," visit www.infonetics.com.