Sales of optical equipment to the cloud and colo market, which includes Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, reached record levels during 2Q18 and were nearly a quarter of all North American operator purchases during 2Q18, according to the most recent Optical Customer Markets Report issued by networking component and equipment market research firm Cignal AI.
“While cloud and colo spending is still not near traditional telco demand for optical transport equipment, the balance is shifting. This is particularly true in North America, where cloud and colo operators now provide both technical and financial leadership to the supply chain,” said Andrew Schmitt, Directing Analyst at Cignal AI.
Some highlights:
- Incumbent spending accounts for the largest share of all optical spending in the market. In fact, incumbent spending in China is as much as all spending by other incumbent operators worldwide, combined. Outlays by EMEA incumbents increased again in the most recent quarter.
- Cable MSO spending in North America continues to be very strong and grew both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.
- Ciena led other vendors in direct sales to the cloud/colo market led by strength from the WaveServer platform. Also, newly-combined Infinera and Coriant became the second largest supplier of optical equipment to these customers. Huawei also continues to grow its market share as a result of growing demand from Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent.
https://cignal.ai/2018/10/cignal-ai-reports-record-cloud-and-colo-optical-hardware-spending/