Market research firm Infonetics (News - Alert) Research recently released its third quarter 2012 Microwave Equipment market size, market share and forecast report. The report encompasses time-division multiplexing (TDM), Ethernet, and dual Ethernet/TDM microwave equipment by spectrum, capacity, form factor, and architecture.

According to Richard Webb — directing analyst for microwave, mobile offload, and mobile broadband devices at Infonetics Research (News - Alert) — the microwave equipment market held steady overall in the third quarter, but with "wildly varying results across segments." These trends are expected to continue.

Specifically, the TDM microwave equipment market will continue to rapidly decline, while the large dual-mode TDM/Ethernet microwave segment will continue its downward trend as well, but much at a slower rate. The Ethernet -only microwave equipment segment, meanwhile, will continue its longstanding growth due to sustained mobile macrocell backhaul demand.

“Among the top 3 players in the market, leader Ericsson (News - Alert) posted a seven percent revenue gain to give them nearly a quarter of the global market, their strongest standing since early 2011," added Webb, also stating that Huawei saw a 19 percent decline in Q3 after having more than doubled their microwave revenue in Q2 2012. This allowed NEC to get within one market share point of Huawei due to a 17 percent jump in revenue. Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert), meanwhile, continued to lead the Ethernet microwave segment.

Other highlights from the report include the fact that backhaul equipment made up 85 percent of total microwave revenue and that EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) accounted for the highest regional proportion of microwave revenue, leading Asia Pacific, North America and Latin America.

In November, Infonetics Research released its preliminary analysis from its third quarter 2012 Optical Network Hardware vendor market share report, which states that investment in new WDM gear isn't enough to offset the accelerated declines in SONET/SDH.

Also in November, the research firm named Sonus Networks as a global leader in SIP communications in the Q3 2012 Service Provider VoIP and IMS Equipment and Subscribers report.

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