Global Optical Transport Down 6% in Q3, RAN Market Slows: Dell-Oro

Optical transport equipment revenue declined 6% year-over-year Q3, Dell’Oro Group said Wednesday. “The main culprit for this market revenue decline was the lack of component supply needed to make finished goods,” said Jimmy Yu, Dell’Oro vice president: “Optical vendors have a growing amount of backlog due to higher demand for [dense wavelength-division multiplexing] equipment but are not able to deliver completed systems when they are short on one component or two. Another factor lowering the market revenue is the strengthening US dollar. Since the market revenue is based on US dollars, most sales in Europe and Asia are converted to fewer US dollars and reducing the reported market size.” Among the regions studied, North America remained “slightly positive” while Europe declined at the highest rate. Dell’Oro said in a second report “preliminary findings suggest” the slow down in the momentum of the radio access network market in the first half of 2022 continued into Q3, declining “year-over-year for a second consecutive quarter.” Following “four years of extraordinary growth that catapulted the RAN market to record levels in 2021, the RAN market is now entering a new phase,” said Stefan Pongratz, Dell’Oro vice president: “Even with 5G still increasing at a healthy pace, comparisons are more challenging and the implication for the broader RAN market is that growth is decelerating. Still, one major difference between 4G and 5G is the fact there are now more frequency options for the operators to pursue, which helps to curb the decline in the post-peak rollout phase.” The top five global suppliers in the quarter were Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung, the report said.