Optical Interconnects for Consumers and other Non-Data Center Applications to Reach $7.0 Billion by 2022

Charlottesville, Virginia: According to new report from CIR, a leading optical networking industry analyst firm, the market for optical interconnect products in consumer and professional (non-data center) applications is already $1.5 billion in revenues (USD) and will reach $7.0 billion by 2022.  The report, “Optical Interconnects and AOCs for Consumer Electronics and Professional Video Applications: A Market Analysis” analyzes the opportunities for active optical cables (AOCs), field-terminated optical links, and application-specific optical links in 11 different end user applications.

For more details of this report see: http://cir-inc.com/reportss/optical-interconnects-and-aocs-for-consumer-electronics-and-professional-vi

About the report:

  • Although the largest markets for these types of optical interconnect are found in the home theater and personal computing sectors, this report also examines how optical interconnects will be sold for home networking, gaming/virtual reality, video editing, digital cinema, audio visual and telepresence networks and some medical application. The report includes:
  • A discussion of how the use of Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps) and HDMI 2.1(48 Gbps) to satisfy the requirements for UHDTV and the Internet-of-Things will drive adoption of optical communications creating new opportunities for existing AOC makers, value-added resellers and start-ups across a broad range of industry sectors and not just in the data center and enterprise networks.
  • A detailed ten-year market forecast of unit sales and revenues of this kind of optical interconnect with breakouts by application, product type, data rates supported, protocols/connector types, cable length, media type (MMF, SMF, POF) and end-user geography.
  • Analysis of supply chain and marketing strategies for optical connectivity products in non-data center markets.  In particular, the report provides guidance on the pricing strategies, retail channels and market messaging which will be necessary for success in the markets considered in this report.
  • Profiles of the activities of the leading suppliers of non-data center optical communications including Apple, C2G, Chromis, Corning, Cosemi, Dell, Gigalight, Intel, Luxtera, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo Electric Industries. In this analysis we cover established players, emergent Chinese vendors and the latest innovators, along with providing quantitative market shares of the AOC market leaders.

From the report:

  • AOCs to dominate non-data center interconnect markets. AOCs will dominate the non-data center optical interconnect market because of their ease of use and relatively low cost.  By 2022 more than half the revenues from non-data center optical interconnects will come from AOCs and revenues from AOCs for home theater alone will have reach around $440 million. By contrast specialized/applications specific optical interconnects will be in slow decline.
  • Low prices necessary. To compete successfully in the consumer electronics or personal computing sectors, optical interconnect suppliers will need to keep prices low.  For example, for AOCs to take a significant share of the home theater connectivity market, they will have to be priced at around $100 by 2022.  This will give some advantages to Chinese cable suppliers.  Nonetheless, US and Japanese AOC firms will still be able to compete using the latest plastic optical fiber (POF) technology and silicon photonics to reduce costs.
  • Staying out the optical interconnect price wars: There remain important parts of the non-data center optical interconnects market where suppliers can avoid significant price competition and can keep margins up with high-value added products.  For example, we believe that medical and telepresence markets will both need specialized interconnects – the market for specialized medical interconnects remaining around $300 million for most of the next decade.  Also $730 million will be generated in this market by field connectorized fiber.

Optical Interconnection for Consumer and Video Applications:  Type of Product ($ Millions)

About CIR:

Communications Industry Researchers (CIR) has published hype-free industry analysis for the optical networking industry for more than 25 years.   Our reports on short-reach optical communications contain the most authoritative market forecast and technology assessment available.

Visit www.cir-inc.com for a full listing of CIR’s reports and other services.

Contact:

Robert Nolan
Tel: 804-938-0030
Rob@cir-inc.com

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