Ciena, Infinera, Nokia, two others capture 80% of coherent WDM shipments in 2016

Ciena, Huawei, Infinera, Nokia, and ZTE have taken the lead as the top five vendors in the 100G and 200G coherent optics industry segment, capturing 80% of all shipments in 2016.

The demand for 100G and 200G coherent optics remained high in 2016.

Dell’Oro Group said in a recent report that purchases of coherent 100 Gbps and 200 Gbps wavelengths on WDM optical systems increased by approximately 75% in 2016, surpassing 250,000 units.

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"There is an insatiable demand for coherent optics," said Jimmy Yu, vice president at Dell'Oro Group, in a release. "The number of coherent 100 and 200 Gbps shipments hit new highs in 2016, exceeding our highest expectations.”

Similar to earlier quarters, the majority of WDM optical revenue was from Asia Pacific, followed by North America and EMEA. The share of revenue in the year was 40%, 29% and 22%, respectively.

Dell’Oro noted that while erosion of coherent WDM optical systems was higher than typical in 2016 at 27%, price declines are expected to stabilize in 2017.

Yu said that the demand for coherent optics will continue to rise in 2017 as new pluggable optics become available.

“We think this demand will be further fueled by the availability of CFP2-ACO and DCO pluggable optics this year, and the increasing adoption of these higher speeds in WDM metro networks around the world," Yu said.