“Between concerns on starting new optical builds during the start of the pandemic and aggressive plans on 5G deployments that required a larger share of a service provider’s capital budget, the spending on optical transport dramatically slowed by the end of 2020,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group.

“Revenues for the MCN market would have been flat year-over-year, if it was not for the 5G Core deployments, primarily in China,” stated David Bolan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “Huawei road the 5G Core wave buildout in China cements Huawei as the top-ranked vendor on a worldwide basis. All indications are that 2021 will be another record-breaking year,” Bolan added.

“It was a difficult market environment for Microwave Transmission sales in 2020,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “The pandemic, of course, was the main cause for the market decline, especially in regions of the world that placed strict rules on travel.

“While we correctly identified the overall trajectory of the market going into the year and maintained the positive outlook even as the pandemic intensified and economists adjusted their GDP projections sharply downward,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President and analyst with the Dell’Oro Group. “We also need to recognize that we completely underestimated the magnitude and the breadth of the ascent in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2020, reflecting stronger than expected results in multiple regions,” continued Pongratz.