Huawei has captured the largest Optical Networking Terminal (ONT) market share in China, said Dell’Oro Group.

The report said the global Passive Optical Network Market (PON) revenue rebounded in the first quarter of 2018 after five consecutive quarters of decline.

The majority of the market growth was in China where broadband subscriber growth drove Optical Networking Terminal (ONT) shipments to a record level.

China added over 11 million new broadband subscribers in Q1 2018, and network operators such as China Mobile purchased large volumes of ONTs to connect those customers to high-speed Internet services.

Alam Tamboli, senior analyst at Dell’Oro Group, said: “We expect demand to soften for rest of the year as China Mobile is expected to add subscribers at a significantly lower rate.”

Huawei and ZTE, the top ranked PON vendors, are working to diversify their customer base in anticipation of reduced demand in China, as operators in China accounted for over four-fifths of each company’s PON revenue in Q1.