The third 50%: China's optical communication industry surpasses "foreign countries" in an all-round way

Time:2024-04-17 14:09

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Source: c114


China's 5G industry leads the world, has successfully "out of the circle" and is well known to the general public.

At the same time, the hero behind 5G, the underlying infrastructure - the optical communication industry, has made up for the shortcomings and surpassed "foreign countries" in an all-round way.

The optical communication industry includes three major parts: optical equipment, optical fiber cables, and optical components and optical modules.

In short, in these three fields, the market share of Chinese companies all exceeds 50%, surpassing the shares of companies from other countries in the world.

Optical Modules: Complementing Short Boards

The first is the field of optical equipment. Mao Qian, a well-known expert in optical communication, publicly introduced last year that there are about 200 optical transmission equipment companies in China, and about 120 are above designated size. Among them, Huawei, ZTE and Fiberhome ranked No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5 in the global optical equipment market with 24.6%, 13.5% and 6.5% shares respectively, and the total share of the three companies is close to half of the global market.

Counting other companies, the share of Chinese companies must exceed 50%. Huawei has ranked first in the world in the field of optical equipment for many years, and is a leader in cutting-edge technologies such as 800G.

Followed by the field of fiber optic cable. According to market organization CRU data, since 2014, China's demand for fiber optic cables has accounted for about 50% of the world's; China's fiber optic cable supply accounts for nearly 60% of the world's.

YOFC, Hengtong, Fiberhome, Zhongtian and Futong, the "big five" of China's optical fiber and cable, can all be ranked among the top ten suppliers in the world. Among them, YOFC is the world's largest supplier of optical fiber preforms, optical fibers, and optical cables, surpassing foreign competitors in scale. The mastery of core technologies such as optical fiber preforms by YOFC, Hengtong and other companies has enabled my country's optical fiber and cable industry to effectively solve the problem of "stuck neck" and occupy an advantageous position in international competition.

The only short board in the industry chain is the optical module. According to a report released by the market organization LightCounting last year, Chinese optical module manufacturers were very weak in 2010, and only one Chinese optical module supplier, WTD, entered the top 10 in the world, ranking ninth. Ten years later, in 2020, the TOP10 list will be "dominated" by Chinese optical module suppliers. They are InnoLight Technology at No. 2, Huawei at No. 3, Hisense Broadband at No. 4, Accelerator at No. 8, Eoptolink at No. 9, and HGG Zhengyuan at No. 10.

LightCounting's latest market report further pointed out that the market share of Chinese optical module suppliers has grown from 15% in 2010 to more than 50% in 2021. This means that China's optical module industry has also followed the footsteps of optical equipment and fiber optic cables and has successfully surpassed.

Not pleased, not to have compassion

In terms of scale, China's optical communication industry is already in a leading position. The first place in optical equipment and the first place in optical fiber cable are all Chinese enterprises. The first place in the optical module is an American company, which is the result of the integration of the two giants Finisar and II-VI. Therefore, it has continued to maintain its super strength and has yet to be caught up by the subsequent "Chinese Legion".

From a technical point of view, Chinese enterprises no longer have obvious technical weaknesses in the fields of optical equipment and optical fibers, and they are in an advantageous position in some subdivision technologies. However, in the field of optical chips at the bottom, there is still a big gap between Chinese companies. In LightCounting's words, "Although Chinese chip suppliers have made significant progress, they still lag behind in the development of high-speed (50G and above) components. Western competitors for 2-3 years.”

If the optical chips are listed separately, we must admit that there is still one last short board that needs to be strengthened. This is also a key shortcoming, which requires the collective efforts of the industry to complete.

Over the past decade or so, China's optical communication industry has achieved a substantial catch-up and reached the world's first-class level, thus becoming a major supplier in this high-tech industry. Looking forward to the future, facing the advantages that have been achieved and the links that are still making progress, Chinese suppliers can completely continue to move forward step by step with a calm attitude.

The reason is, "time is on our side". After nearly ten years of continuous upgrading, the domestic network infrastructure has been at the forefront of the world, and the research and development and commercial use of domestic top technologies are completely affordable. The scale of the optical communication industry has reached half of the world. This is not the end. In the next step, we must win the right to speak, lead the formulation of the rules of the game, and lead the prosperity of the optical communication industry.

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