Optical Industry Bottlenecks: Perspectives from a Former Coherent Technologist
tech team here is doing a call 8/25 1230pm - institutional investors only - DM or email martin at dl dot software
OPTICAL TRANSCEIVER PCBs: MS highlighting ZDT $4958 TT as beneficiary of team's recent upward revision of optical transceiver TAM. Will gain share due to technical ability & capacity to make the denser, more complex mSAP PCBs needed for 800G/1.6T transceivers, which command 2-4x the ASP of 400G. Worried about CPO pushout? Pluggable demand will remain strong.
OPTICAL / CPO Negativity: Optical names didn't get much boost from Computex and are underperforming during the correction. Some negativity on CPO rollout related to manufacturing yields noted by MS today. Not what the names needed (admittedly, CPO not directly relevant for all). FOCI $3363; LANDMARK $3081; SANTEC $6777; FURUKAWA $5801; SEI $5802; YOFC $6869
Chinese optical transceiver maker Eoptolink Technology efforts to stockpile key components to meet booming AI demand and guard against supply constraints sent the value of its inventory 61% higher in the first half
UBS forecasts that global optical fiber demand will grow at a CAGR of approximately 11% from 2026 to 2030, with data center demand growing at a high CAGR of 37%, while telecommunications demand will grow at only 5%. The share of data centers in global optical fiber demand is expected to rise from slightly over 10% in 2025 to more than 45% by 2030.
Industry capacity utilization will remain above 90%, with tight supply-demand conditions persisting at least through 2027–2028.
$GLW