Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC) took over first place in the global microwave equipment market in the second quarter of 2012, barely edging past Huawei and pushing previous leader NEC into third place, according to market research firm Infonetics Research's microwave equipment vendor market share and forecast.
The report, which analyzes TDM, Ethernet and dual Ethernet/TDM microwave equipment by spectrum, capacity, form factor and architecture, found that the overall market of $1.2 billion was up 16 percent over the previous quarter but still down 6 percent from the year-ago period. Regionally, the report said, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) had the strongest quarter with about half of all global microwave equipment revenue.
Even though it was down from a year ago, the microwave equipment market "rebounded nicely in the second quarter thanks to strong performances from Ericsson and Huawei," Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave at Infonetics Research said in a news release. "Huawei had a huge quarter, its biggest ever for microwave equipment. The operator now counts some of the world's major tier 1 international operators as its microwave customers and often supplies their operations across many countries."
Other companies tracked in the report included Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Aviat Networks, Ceragon, DragonWave, ECI Telecom, Exalt, Nokia Siemens Networks and ZTE, the news release said.
Webb added that the results left him optimistic that good things will continue in the microwave space.
"Despite choppy performance in recent quarters, we expect the microwave equipment market to grow to $6 billion by 2016, driven by the continuing demand for increased mobile backhaul capacity and the proliferation of small cells."
Microwave, of course, is only one way of backhauling mobile services—a big part of the business plans for both telcos and cable operators who have driven fiber out to cell sites along with microwave relays.
For more:
- see this news release
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