Forecast: China, India to dominate FTTx spending

Worldwide capital expenditures for fiber-to-the-X (which includes fiber-to-the-premises, fiber-to-the-curb and fiber-to-the-node deployments) will reach $22 billion in 2013, according to a new report from Dittberner Associates. But the largest market for FTTx technology will be the Asia Pacific region, starting in 2006.

Service providers in the Asia Pacific region will spend $12 billion on FTTx technology in 2013, accounting for 52.8% of the FTTx market, the report said. China alone will account for 46% of the total market.

Europe will be the second biggest FTTx market in 2013. North America, where FTTx spending will grow modestly over the next nine years but remain well below $5 billion per year, will be the third biggest FTTx market in 2013, the report said.

"China and India will become the dominant investors in FTTx access technology within a few years as they add large numbers of fixed access lines (more than 13 million per year in China, and close to 4 million per year in India), which will be using mostly fiber technology," said Dr. Alain Thiney, Dittberner vice president.

Dittberner attributes the dominance of China and India in this market directly to the size of each country’s population.

The Dittberner study estimates total spending on FTTx, not just equipment purchases.