Worldwide optical market revenues continued to drop in the last quarter, according to Dell'Oro Group, which tracks the networking and communications industries. However, the reserach company is optimistic about the coming year. Global revenues for optical equipment sales were just under US$3 billion in the third quarter of this year, a four per cent decline over the second quarter of this year, the company said in a press release. One reason for optimism was that demand for optical transport equipment stabilized in North America, where revenues have increased in the two most recent quarters.
“We believe that the optical market is recovering, and forecast steady improvements in year-over-year growth rates as well as a return to positive year-over-year growth by the first quarter of 2010,” said Jimmy Yu, Dell'Oro's director of optical transport research. “We expect the 2010 optical sales recovery to be primarily led by increased demand for metro equipment, such as WDM Metro systems and Multiservice SONET/SDH systems, and 40 Gbps wavelengths.” The DWDM Long Haul market may continue to be weak through 2010, but with continued strength in 40 Gbps wavelengths, Yu added.
The report indicates that DWDM Long Haul 40 Gbps wavelength shipments during the third quarter of this year increased more than 10 per cent sequentially and 130 per cent year-over-year.
Asia Pacific continues to be the largest region for optical transport equipment with nearly 40 percent of worldwide market revenues.
