In its first report on the global market for fiber and copper building-cabling systems, FTM Consulting forecasts that the global market is set to grow at an impressive 16.8% annual rate over the next five years, reaching $18 billion by 2008.
The study forecasts and analyzes five geographical regions: the Americas, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia/Pacific, and Rest of World.
FTM president Frank Murawski comments that there are two significant developments fostering this double-digit worldwide growth.
1. New broadband applications emerging in developed regions will require new-technology fiber cabling to replace existing copper cabling, especially for horizontal subsystems.
2. Les-developed regions, including China, are relatively unpenetrated and will install inexpensive copper cabling in their initial LANs.
"Another factor for growth will be the emerging countries, such as India, that will skip copper cabling and instead deploy more-expensive fiber cabling systems in their leading-edge industries, such as their higher educational institutions and their computer programming firms," FTM said in a release announcing the study's availability. "Fiber cabling provides these industries with additional capabilities, which is required for many of their applications."
The study also explains the distribution of the cabling market by region. The Americas region is expected to dominate the worldwide market, accounting for 50.1% of the market this year, and declining slightly to 46.6% by 2008. FTM attributes this share decline primarily to market saturation in the U.S. Another notable change in market share includes both Eastern European and the Rest of World region; they both will increase their shares as they increase their initial LAN deployments during the five-year forecast period. The Western European and Asian regions, which are more mature markets, will retain their relative shares throughout the forecast period.
More information on the new study is available via e-mail ([email protected]) or via telephone, (717-533-4990).