Ovum predicts fast growth in optical components market

Global analyst firm Ovum says it expects the optical components (OC) market to grow by four percent in 2013, driven by wide area network (WAN) and datacom demand.

Between 2012 and 2018, the global analyst firm predicts that the total OC market will expand at an eight percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to a new high of US$10.5bn, again driven by increasing optics demand in the datacom and WAN segments.

The firm identifies datacom, which constitutes components used in data centres and enterprise networks, as the fastest growing segment, driven by demand for 10G, 40G and 100G components to support server, switch and storage connectivity.

Daryl Inniss, practice leader of components at Ovum and author of the forecast, said: 'Demand to support data centres for cloud services is a large driver for datacom sales, and high-speed transceivers are needed to support this segment. Datacom is looking at a 16 percent CAGR between 2012 and 2018.'

WAN, the largest OC market segment, is still experiencing annual double-digit traffic growth, leading to high demand for 100G ports. ROADM sales are expected to continue to expand worldwide.

The access segment, which includes FTTx, CATV and optical transceivers to connect base stations to antennae (fronthaul), is declining primarily due to maturing FTTx deployments. 'We expect stable performance from fronthaul and CATV throughout the forecast period, but the access segment as a whole is expected to decline at a seven percent CAGR due to contracting FTTx revenues,' Inniss added.