Optical transceiver market to grow 50 percent by 2017

• The optical transceiver market will grow to US $5.1bn in 2017
• The fierce price declines of 2012 will lessen during the forecast period
• Stronger traffic growth could have a significant positive effect on transceiver market growth

"The price declines in 2012 were brutal but they will not happen again [during the forecast period]"

Vladimir Kozlov, LightCounting

The global optical transceiver market will grow strongly over the next five year to $5.1bn in 2017, from $3.4bn in 2012. So claims market research company, LightCounting, in its latest telecom and datacom forecast.

"That [market value] does not include tunable lasers, wavelength-selective switches, pump lasers and amplifiers which will add some $1bn or $2bn more [in 2017]," says Vladimir Kozlov, CEO of LightCounting.

One key assumption underpinning the forecast is that competitive pressures will ease. "The price declines in 2012 were brutal but they will not happen again [during the forecast period]," says Kozlov.


Optical transceivers

The optical transceiver market saw price declines as high as 30 percent last year. These were not new products ramping in volume where sharp price declines are to be expected, says Kozlov.  Last year also saw fierce competition among the service providers while the steepest price declines were experienced by the telecom equipment makers.

One optical transceiver sector that performed well last year is high-speed optical transceivers and in particular Ethernet.

The 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) market saw revenue growth due to strong demand for the 100GBASE-LR4 10km transceiver even though its unit price declined 30 percent. This is a sector the Chinese optical transceiver players are eyeing as they look to broaden the markets they address.

One unheralded market that did well was 40 Gigabit transceivers for telecoms and the data centre. "This is 40 Gig short reach mostly - up to 100m - but also 10km reach transceivers did well in the data centre," says Kozlov.

LightCounting expects the steady growth of 40GbE to continue; 40GbE transceivers use 10 Gig technology co-packaged into one module, offer improved port density and have a lower power and cost compared to four 10GbE transceivers.

Even the veteran 10GbE market continues to grow. Some 7-8M 10GbE short reach and long reach units were sold in 2012 growing to 10M units this year.

Meanwhile, the 100 Gigabit coherent long-haul transponder market was small in 2012. The optical vendors only started selling in volume last year and most of the system vendors manufacture their own 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) designs using discrete components. "Those companies that sell modulators and receivers for 100 Gig did really well in 2012," says Kozlov.

LightCounting expects the 100Gbps coherent transponder market will grow in 2013 as system vendors embrace more third-party 100 Gig transponders. "We estimate that the optical transceiver vendors captured 10-15 percent of the 40 and 100 Gig market and this will grow to 18-20 percent in 2013," says Kozlov.

Other markets that grew in 2012 include optical access. The fibre-to-the-x (FTTx) continues to grow in terms of units shipped, with transceivers and board optical sub-assembly (BOSA) designs sharing the volumes.

LightCounting says that the number of optical network units (ONU) exceeded by more than double the number of FTTx subscribers added in 2012: 35-40M ONU transceivers and BOSAs compared to 15M new subscribers.

The result was a market value of $700M in 2012 compared to $300M in 2009. But because of the excess in shipments compared to new subscribers, Kozlov expects the FTTx market to slow down. "That is probably a sure sign that it is going to grow again," he quips.

 

Market expectations

Kozlov will be watching how the optical interconnect market does this year. The active optical cable market did well in 2012 and this is likely to continue. Kozlov is interested to see if silicon photonics starts to make its mark in the transceiver market, citing as an example Cisco's in-house silicon photonics-based CPAK transceiver. He also expects the 40G and 100Gbps module makers to do well.

LightCounting stresses the wide discrepancy between video traffic growth through 2017 as forecast by Bell Labs and by Cisco Systems. This is important because the optical transceiver forecast model developed by LightCounting is sensitive to traffic growth. LightCounting has averaged the two forecasts but if video traffic grows more quickly, the overall transceiver market will exceed the market research company's 2017 forecast.

Another reason why Kozlov is upbeat about the market's prospects is that while the system vendors suffered the sharpest price declines - up to 35 percent in 2012 - this will not continue.

The sharp falls in equipment prices were due largely to the fierce competition provided by the Chinese giants Huawei and ZTE. But relief is expected with government initiatives in Europe and the United States to limit the influence of Huawei and ZTE, says Kozlov.

The U.S. government has effectively restricted sales of Huawei and ZTE networking equipment to major U.S. carriers due to cyber security concerns, while the European Commission has determined that Huawei and ZTE are both inflicting damage on European equipment vendors by dumping products onto the European market.