Worldwide PON equipment nears $1 billion in 2006

Market Wire, April, 2007

Worldwide passive optical network equipment sales sequentially grew 12% in the fourth quarter and 71% in 2006, reaching $308 million and $965 million, respectively, says Infonetics Research in its PON and FTTH Equipment and Subscribers report.

BPON equipment sales are tanking while EPON and GPON sales are growing rapidly, with GPON revenue and ports forecast to grow at triple-digit 5-year compound annual growth rates between 2006 and 2010. Healthy EPON and GPON sales will continue fueling growth in the overall PON market, which is forecast to reach nearly $2.4 billion in 2010.

"Service providers of all shapes and sizes are pushing fiber deeper into their access networks to support the demand for video, online gaming, P2P networking, and other bandwidth-intensive applications. GPON and EPON for both FTTH and FTTB applications continue to increase, as does Ethernet FTTH, which has become the preferred technology for smaller North American operators, as well as for cities, municipalities, and a growing number of competitive operators in EMEA," said Jeff Heynen, analyst at Infonetics Research.

Report Highlights

--  Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) PON equipment revenue, which represents 60%
    of the market, grew 72% in 2006, and fiber-to-the-business (FTTB) equipment
    revenue, representing 40% of the market, grew 69%
--  Worldwide Ethernet FTTH equipment revenue jumped 58% and port
    shipments jumped 54% in 2006; both will grow in the double digits annually
    through 2010
--  After more than doubling between 2004 and 2005, worldwide PON
    subscribers nearly doubled again in 2006 to 6.5 million, and are expected
    to swell to over 40 million in 2010
--  Worldwide FTTH subscribers grew 86% in 2006 to about 7.5 million, and
    are forecast to climb to almost 47 million in 2010, fueled by strong growth
    in both PON FTTH and Ethernet FTTH subscriber numbers
--  Mitsubishi maintains its strong lead in worldwide EPON revenue and
    port market share; Sumitomo is 2nd, Fujitsu 3rd
--  Tellabs maintains its commanding lead in worldwide BPON revenue and
    port market share; Hitachi is 2nd, Motorola 3rd
    

Infonetics' report tracks PON equipment revenue and ports, including BPON, EPON, GPON, OLTs, ONTs with FTTH vs. FTTB splits; Ethernet FTTH equipment, including CPE and service provider equipment; total FTTH equipment, including FTTH CPE and FTTH non-CPE; and PON, PON FTTH, Ethernet FTTH, and FTTH subscribers.

The report tracks ADVA Optical, Alcatel-Lucent, Allied Telesis, Alloptic, Atrica, Calix, Ceterus, Cisco, Corecess, Dasan Networks, ECI, FiberHome, FlexLight, Fujitsu, Furukawa Electric, Hitachi, Huawei, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Overture, PacketFront, Samsung, Siemens, Sumitomo, Tellabs, Terawave, UTStarcom, Wave7 Optics, World Wide Packets, and others.

Download sample data at www.info.infonetics.com . For sales, contact Larry Howard, vice president, larry@infonetics.com , (408) 583-3335.

Infonetics Research ( www.infonetics.com ) is an international market research and consulting firm specializing in data networking and telecom. Services include market share and forecasting, end-user survey research, service provider survey research, and service provider capex analysis.

Press Contact Jeff Heynen Directing Analyst, Broadband & IPTV Infonetics Research 1 408.583.3359 Email Contact