Telecom Lead Asia: NEC and Fujitsu gained 28 percent in
Asia Pacific optical network equipment market, thanks to spending in Japan.
The global WDM and SONET/SDH optical network equipment
market declined 23 percent in first quarter of 2012 to $2.8 billion against the
previous quarter.
This is the largest quarterly drop in years.
In Q4 2011, the market grew 9 percent.
Fujitsu and Ciena outperformed competitors in North
America.
Asia Pacific was buoyed by strong spending in Japan, with
NEC and Fujitsu posting eye-popping 28 percent gains in first quarter from the
year-ago first quarter.
Aside from the standout performances by NEC and Fujitsu,
while many of the big vendors enjoyed gains the previous quarter, Q1 2012 was
characterized by smaller companies such as Infinera, ADVA, and Transmode
outperforming the market.
Europe’s spending on WDM optical equipment decreased
faster than spending on legacy SDH equipment.
While optical hardware revenue trends in all world
regions were not positive in the first quarter of 2012, the most alarming
development is that year-over-year in EMEA,” said Andrew Schmitt, principal
analyst for optical at Infonetics Research.
This is not the behavior of a region experiencing only a
minor quarterly pullback. By contrast, the trend in North America was the
opposite, with carriers cutting spending year-over-year but allocating towards
forward-looking technology investments like WDM equipment and ROADMs,” Schmitt
added.
EMEA and North America are trending downward on a rolling
fourth-quarter basis, and Asia Pacific is flat.
Infonetics Research is forecasting solid gains in optical
spending in China this year in large part due to our recent visits with Chinese
carriers.
In Europe, some operators will be cutting down on Capex.
Revenue for all optical vendors declined in EMEA, with
the exception of Infinera.
Though EMEA typically has a seasonal sequential decline
in the first quarter, Q1 2012 was the worst quarter for optical Capex in over 5
years.
ROADM optical equipment spending was flat in first
quarter, an achievement considering this category posted a record quarter in Q4
2011.
