Some news from OFC, I have highlighted them below, the news on
INFN are IMO very Bullish and put behind them the problem they had
were their PIC always lagged the market:
ech Trader Daily: Ciena, Infinera, Lumentum: William Blair
Offers Tidbits from OFC Conference -- Barron's Blog
3:17 PM ET 3/22/17 | Dow Jones
By Tiernan Ray
One of the major trade shows of the fiber optic world is taking
place this week in the Los Angeles Convention Center, the The
Optical Networking and Communication Conference & Exhibition,
or simply "OFC," as it's known, and several Wall Street observers
have been at the show and are now reporting back their
findings.
The reports have implications for numerous fiber names,
including Infinera (INFN), Ciena (CIEN),
Lumentum (LITE), and Finisar (FNSR).
William Blair's Dmitry Netis writes today that he's met with
several public and private companies at the show, and he's
"incrementally more positive" on the market overall.
He found out some stuff about Apple's (AAPL) forthcoming iPhone,
widely expected to include 3-D sensing capabilities. Could be good
for Lumentum and Viavi Solutions (VIAV):
We believe Lumentum will be awarded the lion's share of the units
(could be up to 70%) with Finisar and II-VI (IIVI $35.15)
potentially receiving the remaining
portion. Finisar noted it currently has the capacity to
produce 25 million VCSEL lasers. Viavi (VIAV $10.62; Outperform)
will likely receive 100% of the initial order for the optical
filter, with its share scaling down to 80%-85% over time. We
believe orders will be reflected in its June-quarter results. II-VI
is in a position to produce both the VSCEL laser and optical
filter. Management stated it has not accepted any prepayments for
its technology and is spending its own R&D dollars to increase
capacity and not become contractually obligated to reserve capacity
for certain clients.
For one thing, the situation in China, which has been a drag for
the group, is now looking up, he writes:
Conversations with several component vendors
-- Fabrinet (FN) and Lumentum -- suggest Phase 12 Chinese
tenders are "likely to be awarded in the next several weeks," which
would contribute to strong demand in the back half of this calendar
year. This was supported further by NeoPhotonics' (NPTN)
and Finisar's commentary on their recent earnings calls, which
alluded to Chinese tender awards potentially being awarded in the
April time frame.
He also gleaned some nice things
about Infinera:
We attended Infinera's briefing at OFC and walked away with
appreciation for its PIC road map and DSP
strategy. Infinera has put its optical engines (known as
Infinite Capacity Engine) road map on a path to be released every
24 months or less, with the ICE5 engine (4.8T, up to
600G/wavelength) release date in 2017-2018 and ICE6 (7.2T, up to
900G/wavelength) in 2018-2019. ICE4 (2.4T, up to 200G/wavelength)
is the current generation and the foundation of all new data center
interconnect, metro, long-haul, and submarine products (seven in
total) being released throughout this year.
Furthermore, Infinera is willing to use its own and/or
merchant DSP to stay competitive in the
market.
And a bit about Acacia's recent stumble:
Following our discussions with industry sources, we were able to
conclude that Acacia's customer ADVA lost some business at Amazon,
which forced it to build inventory and subsequently halt orders of
Acacia's 5×7 AC100 transceiver modules. We now
believe Amazon's DCI business went
to Ciena in
2017.