Schmitt adds: "EMEA and North America are now trending downward from a base Q4, and Asia-Pacific is flat. However, discussions with vendors and carriers lead us to believe that spending in North America will return to moderate growth, and we are forecasting a solid earnings outlook for spending in China this year, largely due to our recent visits with Chinese operators. Europe, however, is a tough call; macroeconomic trends don't offer much hope and indicate that some service providers are bracing for the worst."

Optical Networking Hardware Market Highlights:
• While the global market for WDM and SONET/SDH optical networking equipment fell 23% in Q1 2012 to $2.8 billion (the biggest quarterly drop of the year), the impact was exacerbated by a strong previous quarter, when the market grew 9%.
• Revenue for all optical manufacturers declined in the EMEA region, with the exception of Infinera.
 Although the EMEA region typically experiences a sequential seasonal decline in the first quarter, Q1 2012 was the worst quarter for optics capital expenditure in over five years.
Fujitsu and Ciena outperformed their competitors in North America.
Asia-Pacific was driven by strong spending in Japan, with NEC and Fujitsu posting impressive 28% gains in Q1 2012 compared to Q1 of the previous year.
• Aside from the standout performances of NEC and Fujitsu, while many of the larger vendors enjoyed gains in the previous quarter, the first quarter of 2012 was characterized by smaller companies, such as Infinera, ADVA, and Transmode, outperforming the market.
• Spending on ROADM optical equipment remained flat in the first quarter of 2012, an achievement considering this category posted a record quarter in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Report Synopsis:
The Infonetics Quarterly Report tracks Adtran, ADVA, Alcatel-Lucent, BTI, Ciena, Cisco, ECI, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Infinera, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Sycamore, Tellabs, Transmode, Tyco, ZTE, and others. The report provides vendor market shares globally and regionally, market size, and analysis (forecasts published May 25).

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