ZTE Passes Alcatel-Lucent
MAY 29, 2013 | Craig Matsumoto | Post a Comment


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ZTE Corp. has ousted Alcatel-Lucent as the No. 2 optical networking vendor, putting Chinese vendors in the top two spots for the first time, according to results released by Ovum Ltd. on Tuesday.
Technically, Ovum's press release doesn't say who took the top spot, but come on -- it's Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

The results come from Ovum's first-quarter market-share report, and of course, market share can drift from quarter to quarter. Still, the nudging aside of AlcaLu has got to be cause for celebration at ZTE.

Ovum pegged the overall optical networking market at $14.5 billion per year. That's not necessarily good; the first quarter of 2013 was the sector's weakest quarter in six years, as analyst Ron Kline noted in Ovum's press release. On the plus side, 100Gbit/s sales keep climbing and exceeded $250 million (Ovum described it as a $1 billion annualized run rate), although that was split among 20 vendors.

In the first quarter, Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. was the only company increased sales on a sequential and a year-over-year basis.

It's worth noting that the first quarter of the year tends to be weak for optical networking, although that doesn't make the "lowest in six years" part feel any better for vendors.

— Craig Matsumoto, Managing Editor, Light Reading

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