The size of the optical network equipment market increased 3 percent to $12.5 billion in 2015, said IHS Inc.

Telecom network vendors Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent performed well in the fourth quarter of 2015, both gaining significantly in share compared to Q3 2015.

Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, ZTE and Infinera are the optical hardware market share leaders in 2015, said Alex Green, senior research director for IT and networking at IHS.

Huawei has 26 percent, Alcatel-Lucent 15 percent, Ciena 14 percent, ZTE 11 percent and Infinera 7 percent share in the global optical network equipment market in Q4 2015.

Optical spending rose 17 percent sequentially, and grew 10 percent from the year-ago quarter to $3.5 billion in Q4 2015.

Spending on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) equipment grew 18 percent to $3.1 billion in Q4 2015.

Optical spending EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) declined 3 percent in Q4.

Optical spending in North America increased 5 percent in fourth quarter.