While growth in the optical transport equipment market declined in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) and European regions, North America experienced solid growth of 25% in Q1 2022. On a global basis, the market grew 2% year-over-year (YoY) in Q1, according to research group Dell'Oro.

"Growth in Americas more than offset declines in other regions," said Jimmy Yu, VP at Dell'Oro Group, in a statement. "There was definitely strong demand for optical equipment in North America and Latin America, and vendors were able to deliver products even with component shortages and supply issues hampering them."

In North America and Latin America, optical transport revenue was up 25% and 19% YoY, respectively. Ciena, Fujitsu, Infinera and Cisco were the vendors with the highest market share in the Americas, with a total of an 80% share of regional revenue.

Yu explained that the war in Ukraine, COVID lockdowns, supply chain constraints and inflation all contributed to a decline in the optical transport equipment market in Europe, APAC and China. These regions declined at a mid-single-digit rate for Q1 2022.

Overall, component shortage and supply chain challenges lowered the YoY global optical market growth rate from an estimated 6% to 3% in Q1.

The $15 billion optical transport equipment market declined 2% in 2021 due to market conditions in the APAC region. Dell'Oro predicts the optical transport equipment market will grow at a 3% CAGR to $18 billion by 2026 as a result of sales of DWDM systems delivering wavelength speeds over 200 Gbit/s.

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading