source: c114 communication network
on june 6, the ministry of industry and information technology issued 5g commercial licenses to china telecom, china mobile, china unicom and china radio and television, officially announcing the arrival of 5g era.
as the basic unit of 5g network physical layer, the core component of base station and transmission equipment, the optical module industry has also ushered in a new round of development opportunities. china merchants securities predicted that 5g commercial will greatly boost the demand for optical modules. in the future, 5g national coverage needs to build nearly 10 million base stations, with a potential demand of hundreds of millions of high-speed optical modules. the early market demand is more than 30 billion yuan, and the total market space is more than 10 billion dollars.
the market seems to be booming with the application scenarios of tens of millions of new consumption, transmission / access / digital communication and so on. however, the prosperity on the surface is hard to cover. the price of optical modules keeps falling, the industry is over competitive, the localization of high-end products is slow, the core chips are controlled by people, and the development of industrial chain is unbalanced, which have become a problem for domestic industries chain problems.
attractive & ldquo; prospects & rdquo;
according to the latest forecast report of optical communication market released by lightcounting, 5g will be deployed on schedule or become one of the three major events that will enable the global optical transceiver market to achieve a cagr of 14% between 2003 and 2024. now 5g license plate has been issued, taking the first step in the market forecast.

global optical transceiver sales growth 2003-2024
wei leping, executive deputy director of the communication science and technology commission of the ministry of industry and information technology, believes that the 5g era optical module will usher in a huge opportunity. according to the uplink edge rate of 3mbps and different networking methods, the number of 5g outdoor macro stations required is at least 1.2-2 times of 4g; if the indoor coverage mainly depends on tens of millions of small base stations, the predicted 5g will bring tens of millions of 25 / 50 / 100gbps optical module consumption. china merchants securities predicted that the scale of hongji station in 5g era will reach 5 million, and the number of small base stations will be nearly 10 million. the total investment of the three major domestic operators will be nearly 165 billion us dollars, up nearly 50% compared with 110 billion us dollars in 4g era.

the forecast of guolian securities is also optimistic. it believes that the 5g optical module market in china is nearly 70 billion. for 5g bearing, 25 / 50 / 10gb / s new high-speed optical module is gradually introduced in the front, middle and back access layers, and n & times; 100 / 200 / 400gb / s high-speed optical module is widely introduced in the back convergence and core layers.
in addition, the transition of data center to two-level architecture will also improve the demand for optical modules. according to the statistics and prediction of ovum, 100gb / s optical modules began to grow rapidly in 2017, and the sales revenue of 100gb / s optical modules is expected to exceed 7 billion us dollars by 2022.
the bitter "money scene";
under the stimulation of various factors, the demand for optical modules is rising, with a bright prospect on the surface. however, the current situation of optical communication market is that the price of modules is falling, and manufacturers are in a dilemma and hard to survive.
the high demand leads to fierce competition in the market, which leads to the law of price decline in the optical communication industry is no exception. in terms of pon optical module, the price is also going down. dai qiwei, manager of the access product line of lightfast terminal, said that in terms of the global pon series product investment trend, 10gpon & nbsp; olt / onu may usher in a rapid outbreak time window, with an annual compound growth rate expected to reach more than 50%, which will lead to gradually fierce market competition and an avalanche decline in the price of pon optical module products.
on the one hand, the price of optical modules is decreasing year by year, which will accelerate in 5g era; on the other hand, the market malpractice of excessive competition of enterprises is gradually revealed, and the ecological health is broken. as the top 3 optical module manufacturer in china, li dawei, cto of hisense broadband, pointed out that "not participating in the competition is a complete exit, and the phenomenon that participating in the competition is equivalent to chronic suicide" has become the crux of the industry.
the unbalanced development of industrial chain is also the pain point of the industry. from the perspective of revenue, in the optical communication industry, the gross profit margin of equipment manufacturers and chip manufacturers is relatively high, while that of agent factories and component packaging is less than 10%. high input and high income help the enterprise metabolism, on the contrary, it is difficult to achieve sustainable innovation with low gross profit rate, which is a challenge for related enterprises.
in addition, the localization process of high-end chips is slow, which has become a hard injury to the development of domestic optical communication industry. in the past decade, in addition to core optoelectronic chips, although domestic enterprises have advantages in chip packaging, module capacity and other aspects, they still rely heavily on foreign suppliers in high-end optical chips and electric chips, and the domestic demand is urgent.
it is undeniable that from the perspective of the whole 5g optical module market, operators, major equipment manufacturers, etc. are actively investing in the cake, which is really big enough; however, it is a little bitter to enter the food sharing ranks