Date: 03/04/2011

Microwave range RF equipment revenue growth in 2010 is near flat

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its new report on "Microwave Equipment and Millimeter Wave Equipment". Below are the highlights.

Microwave equipment market highlights:

Shipments of microwave equipment grew in 2010 over the previous year, but due to price erosion, particularly in the hybrid TDM/Ethernet equipment segment, overall revenue was relatively flat, at $5.6 billion (down 1%) worldwide
For the quarter, microwave equipment revenue inched up 3%
Market leader Ericsson gained 9 points of market share for worldwide microwave equipment revenue in just the last 2 quarters, capping 4Q10 with a 2-year high of over 25% share
NEC, Huawei, and particularly Alcatel-Lucent also posted strong 4th quarter results

Millimeter wave market highlights:

The relatively small but fast-growing millimeter wave equipment market jumped 121% in 2010 to $69 million worldwide
The focus of the millimeter wave equipment market is quickly shifting from transport networks to mobile backhaul networks, driven in large part by Clearwire's adoption of millimeter wave technology as a backhaul solution in parts of its nationwide WiMAX network deployment
By 2015, Infonetics expects that 70% of millimeter wave equipment will be deployed in backhaul networks as the demand for high capacity mobile backhaul solutions for metro areas with high cell density and small cells in particular
NEC's launch of its ePASOLINK millimeter wave product line in late 2010 and the expected launch of millimeter wave products by other leading microwave equipment vendors in 2011 is projected to challenge the market share positions of millimeter wave specialists BridgeWave and E-Band Communications

"The nature of the mobile RAN is changing, with a shift to flatter IP-centric architecture bringing new cell site topologies as operators migrate to LTE. This means that macro sites will have to accommodate 2G, 3G, and LTE, plus there will be a greater proportion of small (micro/pico) cell sites to provide the coverage density required to support high bandwidth services. Microwave and millimeter wave technologies are evolving to accommodate the emerging next-generation radio access network, by offering higher bandwidth, flexible frequency options, and new backhaul radio form factors such as all-outdoor, zero-footprint solutions," notes Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave at Infonetics Research.