The market for optical networking equipment is well on the path to recovery after healthy gains in the first quarter, according to statistics from two research firms.
Ovum today announced it estimated that the global ON market grew 7% year-on-year during the quarter to reach $3.5 billion.
Annualised spending also moved into the black, albeit with a modest 1% growth, reaching $14.6 billion.
But Ovum said spending in APAC, as well as Europe, the Middle East and Africa, continued to stagnate over the period.
Alcatel-Lucent was the best-performing vendor on a quarterly basis, growing its revenue 17% over the quarter to $645 million, and reaching a market share of 18.4%. The vendor made the top of the leaderboard for the first quarter in two years.
According to Ovum, Ciena gained the most annualised market share, while Huawei lost the most.
Earlier in the week, Dell'Oro calculated that OTN market revenues grew 10% year-on-year to $3 billion.
The firm estimates that the market will grow 9% to over $13 billion by year-end.
Dell'Oro has now recorded three consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth for the OTN market, after a long slump that began in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The researchers' own Q1 figures show Huwaei's OTN market share declining by seven percentage points year-on-year to 18%, with Alcatel-Lucent gaining two points to reach a 17% share.