The wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) market grew 10% year-on-year to record revenue of $2.6bn in second-quarter 2014, according to the latest Optical Transport Quarterly Report from Dell’Oro Group.
The WDM market comprises both long-haul and metro applications. In second-quarter 2014, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) long-haul equipment revenue grew 18% year-on-year and WDM metro equipment revenue grew 4% year-on-year.
“The WDM market growth isn’t slowing down,” says Jimmy Yu, VP of Optical Transport research at Dell’Oro Group. “The recent second-quarter growth of 10% marked the 18th consecutive quarter that the WDM market has increased. Furthermore, as an indication of the market’s strength, 12 of those 18 quarters grew at double-digit percentage rates,” he adds.
“A number of factors are driving the strong growth of WDM; the most significant of which is the global adoption and penetration of 100Gbps wavelengths in long-haul applications,” notes Yu. “It is also one of the reasons why DWDM long-haul equipment revenue growth rates have been outpacing that of WDM metro equipment for the past two years,” he concludes.
