When announcing preliminary findings from its most recent quarterly sales database, optical market-research firm LightCounting stated, “While increasing sales of 100G and 40G products dominate the headlines, 10GigE optical transceivers are on target to set a new record in 2013. Very strong demand for short-reach 10GigE optical transceivers will push the total shipments of 10GigE modules above 10 million in 2013—up 40 percent from last year.” LightCounting further said 2013 will be the first year in which shipments of short-wave (850-nm) 10-GbE modules will exceed those of short-wave 1-GbE modules. “This data confirms that optical connectivity captures a larger share of the market at 10 Gbits/sec,” LightCounting said, “despite reports of increasing sales of 10GBase-T in early 2013.”
The overall Ethernet transceiver market also is being buoyed by increasing shipments of 40- and 100-GbE products, the firm says, adding, “however, the broader market for optical transceivers is likely to be flat in 2013 due to a sharp drop in sales of FTTx products. The FTTx market has been overdue for a correction and many vendors are reporting sharply lower shipments of EPON and GPON ONUs [optical network units] in 2013, although sales of OLT [optical line terminal] products remain steady so far.”
LightCounting’s research digs into applications, and the firm noted that shipments of optical transceivers for wireless infrastructure were modest in the first half of 2013, but demand for these products increased sharply in the most recent three months. It also reported that the market for active optical cables (AOCs) has been slow this year, despite several suppliers reporting their first volume shipments of SFP+ AOCs.
The final version of the quarterly database, which will be released in late October, presents quarterly shipments and selling prices for more than 100 product categories of optical components and modules, covering eight quarters of 2012-2013, including actual data and estimates for the most-recent two quarters. LightCounting says more than 25 leading optical component and module vendors shared their confidential sales data for this report.
LightCounting will host a webcast on October 23 at 1pm EDT/10am PDT, titled “Review of the Latest Market Research Reports and Industry Events.” It will include highlights from the July 2013 Market Forecast Report as well as the H1 2013 quarterly sales database. It also will include discussion of news from recent industry events. Preregistration is required. You can preregister for the webcast by emailing LightCounting at [email protected].
