Report: Optical transport WDM equipment market grew 15% in Q3

The optical transport WDM equipment market grew 15% year-over-year in the third quarter, according to a report by Dell'Oro Group.

The majority of the optical transport WDM equipment growth occurred in the Asia Pacific region, according to the report. In the third quarter, coherent wavelength shipments increased 30%.

“The optical market outperformed in the third quarter,” said Jimmy Yu, vice president of Dell’Oro Group, in a prepared statement. “All of the growth was driven by rising demand for coherent wavelengths in metro and long haul WDM systems.  Shipment of 100 Gbps wavelengths continued to rise, but it was a newer, higher speed wavelengths operating at 200 Gbps that truly moved the market revenue higher."

Service providers are replacing legacy gear to accommodate the growth of higher speed fixed broadband and data center interconnection, which has, for the most part, driven up WDM equipment shipments

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Shipments of 100 Gbps wavelengths increased by nearly 15% year-over-year while shipments of 200 Gbps and higher wavelengths more than doubled over the same time frame. Over the past few years, service providers have been migrating from 100 Gbps to 200 and 400 Gbps. 

The top third-quarter manufacturers of WDM systems on a revenue basis were Huawei, Ciena, ZTE, and Nokia.