September 14, 2009
PON Market on Path to Recovery: Report
By Narayan Bhat, TMCnet Contributor
The global market for passive optical network equipments is heading on a path of recovery, fuelled by the massive deployment of networking gears in China, according to a report from market research firm Infonetics.
China Telecom’s ongoing FTTB rollout and China Unicom’s massive deployment of EPON FTTB/FTTN are fueling the shipments of EPON, said Infonetics in its Q2 2009 PON and FTTH equipment and subscribers report.
“EPON spending shot way up in China in Q2 2009, buoying the worldwide PON market, despite global declines in GPON and WDM-PON spending,” says Jeff Heynen, an analyst with the research firm.
In China, where market for FTTH equipment is really growing, ZTE is currently out-shipping Huawei (News - Alert), which traditionally led the market for years.
According to Infonetics, worldwide PON equipment revenue – including BPON, EPON, GPON and WDM-PON – was up 16 percent sequentially in Q2 2009, to $584.1 million.
The researcher predicts that the number of PON ONT port shipments may reach 24.5 million by 2013.
GPON equipment sales, according to analyst, are expected to pick up in China as China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom (News - Alert) move forward to expand their network everywhere in the mainland.
The worldwide Ethernet FTTH equipment market roared back to life in Q2 2009, jumping 108 percent to $150.5 million, led by deployments by the United Arab Emirates’ Etisalat (News - Alert), Holland’s Reggefiber and Saudi Telecom.
In Q2 2009, Huawei eked past Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola (News - Alert) to take the lead in worldwide GPON revenue share.
The research firm said it tracked the market players such as Alcatel-Lucent, Allied Telesis, Alloptic, Calix, Fujitsu, Genexis, Hitachi (News - Alert), Huawei, LG Nortel, Mitsubishi, Nokia Siemens, Occam, Oki, PacketFront, Sagem, Salira, Sumitomo, Telco Systems, Tellabs, Tilgin, Ubiquoss, ZTE and others.
“In the Asia-Pacific region, early BPON and EPON rollouts in Japan and South Korea are quickly being eclipsed by China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile’s extensive EPON and GPON rollouts for FTTB, FTTH and mobile backhaul. Though EPON dominates Chinese deployments today, there is no question that the Chinese operators will deploy GPON. The only question is: how much?” Heynen asked in a recent report on Asia Pacific region.
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Narayan Bhat is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Narayan’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Erin Harrison
