400G optical module shipments grew significantly in 2024 and are expected to exceed 20 million units. Although the growth of 800G optical modules slowed down in the third quarter of 2024, 400G optical module shipments more than doubled year-on-year. In addition, in the first quarter of 2024, 400G and 800G optical module shipments also showed significant growth, with a month-on-month increase of more than 25%.
Market demand and driving factors
The growth in 400G and 800G optical module shipments is mainly due to the huge investment in AI infrastructure by hyperscale cloud service providers. These investments have driven a surge in shipments of 400G/800G Ethernet optical modules, especially the increased demand for PAM4 chipsets (such as DSPs, drivers, and TIAs). For example, hyperscale cloud service providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta have deployed these high-speed optical modules in large quantities in data center cluster interconnects.
Future trend forecast
In the next few years, the optical communication chipset market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17%, and the market size will exceed US$11 billion by 2030. In particular, in the field of coherent DWDM optical modules, demand is shifting from onboard solutions to pluggable ZR/ZR+ modules, and it is expected that the shipment volume of ZR/ZR+ modules will surpass onboard optical modules in 2025. In addition, China's optical communication device market is expected to continue to maintain a good development momentum, and the market size is expected to exceed 210 billion yuan in 2025, with a growth rate of about 14%.