Huawei, Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN) and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) benefited from a 4 percent year-over-year rise in WDM equipment spending during the third quarter, reports Infonetics Research in its quarterly optical network hardware report.
While Ciena won't release earnings until Dec. 12, Alcatel-Lucent reported in Q3 2013 that its WDM portfolio revenues grew 10 percent due to deployments by carriers in the Americas and Asia Pacific.
However compelling the rise in WDM spending was during the quarter was, Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics said it came at a time when "overall optical spending is down on a quarter-over-quarter and year-over-over basis."
Schmitt added that he expects "Tier 1 carriers to dial back spending."
On a global perspective, the overall optical hardware market declined 7 percent sequentially and 1 percent year-over-year.
In EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) WDM spending declined on a year-over-year and sequential basis, nearing the record low set in 1Q13.
One shining star was North America, where optical spending rose 13.4 percent year-over-year, following an 11.1 percent year-over-year increase in Q2 due to aggressive 100G optical rollouts by Tier 1 service providers such as Sprint (NYSE: S) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ).
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