What a Wonderful Year was 2011: Everybody [says it] is Growing!

 
A wave of momentum press releases from private companies in our space has been published lately - each trying to show how good was 2011 for them (as non-public companies, they do not have to show all aspects of their business .. see at the end an example of a public company announcement). 

But be aware - according to Ovum principal analyst Matt Walker (pictured) "Slow growth ahead for telecom service provider revenues and capex" (here):

"service provider (SP) capex and revenues grew an estimated 12 per cent and seven per cent respectively in 2011, with capex reaching US$314bn and revenues US$1,962bn. However, the report forecasts that SP revenues will advance at a CAGR of 2.9 per cent over the 2010-2017 period, which is markedly down from the historic CAGR of 6.3 per cent achieved in 2004-2010. There is a similar slowdown with capex: capex expanded at a CAGR of 6.5 per cent in 2004-2010, but this will likely slow to 3.1 per cent in 2010-2017"

Back to the happy vendor announcements: 

• DigitalRoute - "DigitalRoute added more than 40 service providers to its list of more than 240 MediationZone customers during 2011. These include Tier-1 service providers in the USA and Europe that went into live operation with MediationZone within 6 months after project start. As a result of the recent success DigitalRoute has accelerated its revenue growth in 2011, achieving 59% year-over-year growth while also increasing profitability".
  
  See "DigitalRoute Increases Growth 59% with Tier 1 Customer Wins" - here
   
• BroadHop - ".. reported it has secured 23 Quantum Network Suite customer wins in 2011, doubling the number of customers from the previous year. Innovative Communication Service Providers (CSPs) in four continents have selected BroadHop’s next-gen policy platform as scalability and service velocity become increasingly critical for Tier 1 operators looking to compete in hypercompetitive markets and in the post “all you can eat” bandwidth world. Demand for Quantum Network Suite grew significantly in Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific (AP) markets where the Company secured 15 customers in competitive wins. Further expanding its geographic footprint, BroadHop secured 7 competitive wins in North America".
  
  See "BroadHop Announces 23 Quantum Network Suite Customer Wins in 2011" - here.
  
  I asked BroadHop if they can name at least one customer, but the response was they can’t because of - "Competitive advantage…" (?).
    
• BTI systems - " With a global customer base of close to 400, packet optical expanded to more than 60% of BTI deployments in 2011, bolstered by customer demand for the Company's market-leading mobile backhaul, Ethernet business and Internet services solutions".
  
  See "BTI Systems Momentum Fueled by Content and Service Provider Demand for High-Bandwidth, Application-Aware Metro Network Solutions" - here.
   
• Orga Systems - "Orga Systems continued its revenue growth driven by investments in its products, services and sales coverage. The 2011 annual turnover has grown 30% higher over the past 2 years. The volume of year-end backlog for 2012 has almost tripled as compared to that for 2010. This excellent result is due to 18 months of extensive business transformation with more than 80m subscribers added on its systems".
   See "Orga Systems continues growth curve" - here.

On the other hand, Tellabs announced, due to challenging Q4 results, that "We will reduce expense and stop new development work on the Tellabs SmartCore 9100 LTE product, while continuing to support Tellabs SmartCore 9100 WiMax customers" (here). The 9100 is Tellabs' DPI enabled core router - see also "DPI Announcements: Tellabs New LTE SGW/PGW" - here.