Comment (0)REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – According to a recently published report from Dell'Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications and networks industries, optical transport equipment revenue increased 1 percent in 2020 reaching $16 billion. In this period, all regions grew with the exception of North America and Latin America.
"Between concerns on starting new optical builds during the start of the pandemic and aggressive plans on 5G deployments that required a larger share of a service provider's capital budget, the spending on optical transport dramatically slowed by the end of 2020," said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "It was a really dramatic drop in optical equipment purchases in the fourth quarter. While we anticipated a slowdown near the end of the year due to concerns around COVID-19, we were surprised by a 29 percent year-over-year decline in WDM purchases in North America as well as a 12 percent decline in China. That said, there was good growth in the other parts of the world, especially Japan," continued Yu.
Table 1: Optical Transport Equipment Market
| Regions | Growth Rate in 2020 |
| North America | -6% |
| Europe, Middle East and Africa | 2% |
| China | 1% |
| Asia Pacific excluding China | 13% |
| Caribbean and Latin America | -14% |
| Worldwide | 1% |
| Source: Dell'Oro Group. | |
