Infinera planning to get bigger slice of LatAm market

Network equipment manufacturer Infinera expects to conquer more of the Latin American market.

“We are talking to clients that we weren't talking to before,” regional technology head Andrés Madero told BNamericas.

Madero said the supply chain crisis pushed customer orders forward to 2023. “Q1 is always a pretty slow quarter, and you see a lot more purchases in Q2 to install in Q3 and Q4. But it is not what we are seeing this 2022 and not for 2023,” he added.

He said the company will hire staff and focus on client acquisition in 2023, adding, “with the global economic expectation, I don't think [2023] is going to be an incredible year, as 2024 could be. I think that 2023 will also be a year of growth, but above all, of positioning in the region.”

The launch of XR technology, which allows point-to-multipoint access networks of up to 400GB, will also open a business niche. The company is carrying out tests with American Tower and Telefónica and has worked with server and datacenter companies, including hyperscalers.

During the end of this year and the beginning of the next, these companies will receive equipment for more formal testing in the network. Infinera expects to have the product commercially available next year.

SUPPLY CHAIN

As a vertical company with control over its supply chain, Infinera could handle delivery delays well, expanding its participation in the Latin American market. "This has triggered all the demand," said Madero.

While some manufacturers registered delays of up to 50 weeks, Infinera and similar companies could maintain almost the same delivery times as before the supply chain crash.

"Companies that have vertical integration are still quite competitive and eating a lot of the market share of other companies," he said.

PRODUCTS

Infinera's equipment is higher priced, but involves more efficient long-term costs and short delivery times.

The company recently announced a contract with Neutral Networks to modernize its fiber optics networks in Mexico and the US. Madero said more announcements will be made during the Futurecom 2022 event next month in São Paulo.

Operators are increasingly using 5th-generation coherent optics, which allow greater efficiency by using less hardware, and which can be used for submarine, land or other networks, offering flexibility, according to Madero.

And he said operators are using their equipment to avoid the use of repeaters in the network and free up that equipment for other deployments.