Huawei Overtakes Alcatel-Lucent in Optical Network Hardware Market

Huawei has moved into the lead position for revenue share in the worldwide optical network hardware market in the first quarter of 2009, challenging perennial leader Alcatel-Lucent, according to market research firm Infonetics Research.

Preliminary results from Infonetics' Optical Network Hardware report show that Huawei increased its revenue market share to 23% for the first quarter of 2009, just ahead of Alcatel-Lucent, which maintains the overall lead on an annualized basis.

"Since 2002, the optical network market has grown at an 8% compound annual growth rate, but for most vendors it looked more like 6% because Huawei absorbed a significant portion of the annualized gains. I don't see this trend ending anytime soon, and if it doesn't, Huawei could be the overall market leader for 2009," said Andrew Schmitt, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for optical.

The report also shows worldwide optical network hardware sales dropped 22% sequentially in 1Q09, from US$4.0 billion to US$3.1 billion.

Posted to the site on 15th May 2009