Strong performance for optical networking market; No. 3 ZTE posts biggest gain

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: The global optical networking (ON) market put in a strong performance in the second quarter of 2011, climbing almost exactly halfway to its pre-recession peak, according to Ovum.

In a new market share analysis, the independent telecoms analyst finds that spending by telecoms service providers with ON vendors grew by 16 per cent when compared with the first quarter of the year, and 17 per cent when compared to the same quarter last year, to hit $4.1 billion.

Moreover, annualised spending rose 8 per cent when compared with the second quarter of 2010, to reach $15.3 billion. Dana Cooperson, vice president of Ovum’s network infrastructure practice, commented: “This performance marks the second sequential quarter of annualised gains and puts the market almost exactly halfway back to its pre-recession peak of $16.6 billion, posted in the third quarter of 2008.”

Regionally, the South and Central American market rebounded the most in percentage terms, growing 31 per cent sequentially to reach $267 million. However, the Europe, Middle East, and Africa market’s growth of 25 per cent sequentially, and 38 per cent year-on-year, to hit $1.17 billion, was more significant given its size.

Cooperson commented: “In North America, the market grew 18 per cent when compared to the second quarter of 2010 to top $1 billion for the fourth straight quarter. Only Asia-Pacific did not grow when compared to quarter two of 2010, with spending remaining at $1.4 billion.”

In terms of the vendor picture, Huawei reclaimed the top revenue spot for the quarter, with $900 million and 22.7 per cent share, beating its posting for the first quarter of 2011 by more than 60 per cent. However, despite this, Huawei still suffered the biggest loss of the top ten vendors in the more important annualised share metric.

Meanwhile, its archrival ZTE, which was ranked third in terms of market share, had its best ever quarter, reaching revenues of just over $500 million. This represented an annualised increase of 45 per cent when compared with the second quarter of 2010 and allowed ZTE to post the biggest annualized share gain in the top ten.