September 15, 2009
Infonetics Reports Microwave Equipment 2Q Trends
By Narayan Bhat, TMCnet Contributor
According to market research firm Infonetics, the worldwide microwave equipment market is expected to grow more than double its current size between 2008 and 2013, from $4.9 billion to $10.7 billion.
The quarterly report on microwave equipment market released on Sept. 14 said that the recession is having only a marginal impact on the microwave equipment market, which, overall, continues to post healthy gains every quarter.
Globally, Ericsson and NEC are neck and neck in the lead positions for overall microwave equipment revenue in the second quarter 2009, both with 22% revenue share, and significantly ahead of the chasing pack, according to the report.
The microwave equipment market continues to be driven by mobile backhaul spending, with demand rapidly growing as the mobile broadband boom accelerates traffic growth, driving operators to upgrade their backhaul provision from cell site to the core network.
Richard Webb, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for WiMAX (News - Alert), microwave, and mobile devices said that there’s a continual shift in the market from TDM-only equipment to Ethernet-cable gear, driven by increasing bandwidth needs.
“The bulk of microwave backhaul equipment is dual TDM/Ethernet, enabling mobile operators to continue TDM support for voice traffic, whilst leveraging the higher capacity capabilities of Ethernet to manage the exponential growth in data traffic," said Webb.
In Asia, the researcher said, Huawei (News - Alert) saw the most improvement in market share in the second quarter 2009, with increased microwave revenue driven by deployment of 3G networks in China.
Worldwide microwave equipment sales hit $4.9 billion in 2008, up 23% from the previous year.
Microwave is increasingly used as an access technology in developing countries where enterprises and organizations often find lack of alternative viable wireline access to meet the growing need for bandwidth.
Infonetics said it tracked almost all major market players including Adtran, Alcatel-Lucent, Allgon, Bridgewave, Cambridge Broadband, Ceragon (News - Alert), DragonWave and Ericsson.
Narayan Bhat is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Narayan’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire
