Adva, Ciena and Nokia see uptick in optical sales from cloud and colocation providers, research firm says

Adva, Ciena and Nokia are three optical vendors that are finding fortune in the cloud and colocation market, selling their wares to a set of customers whose bandwidth needs continue to rise, says Cignal Al in a new study.

Ciena reported in its fiscal second-quarter 2017 earnings that converged packet optical performed well, with $502.1 million in revenues, up from $435.2 million in the same period a year ago. During the second quarter, Ciena added six new customers to its 8700 platform for a total of 49.

But the research firm noted that Adva’s cloud and colocation revenues grew over 40% in 2016, faster than any other vendor.

Cignal Al
Optical spending growth by customer market. Cignal Al

The research firm noted that the growth in the optical market is being fueled by strong demand from cloud and colocation providers as well as incumbent telcos in China.

“The composition of optical equipment demand has changed dramatically over the past five years, as cloud companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft have become the predominant source of growth in optical transport equipment purchasing,” said Andrew Schmitt, lead analyst for Cignal AI, in a release.

Schmitt added that this year “we expect cloud and colo customer demand in North America to exceed that spent by all the cable MSOs.”

Cignal Al said that cloud and colocation growth is centered in North America, but will extend into the EMEA and APAC markets in 2017 and beyond.