Findings show that the global structured cabling market had “a very good year”, increasing by 4.2 per cent to USD 6.7 billion in 2018, “a much better performance than 2017” when the market increased by 1.8 per cent. The global estimate is based on data from 39 countries. This is according to BSRIA’s annual global cabling study released this week.
Such growth has been boosted by data centres and higher value products.
Indeed: sales of cabling to the data centre segment increased by almost six per cent in 2018 and with many countries showing significant growth. China increased by almost 15 per cent and several European countries increased by over 10 per cent, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Poland. A high proportion of cabling products in data centres are fibre, mainly providing connectivity, which continues to increase.
Another important trend is the increasing use of single mode fibre cables in data centres used with pre-terminated devices (MPO/MTP) and for high bandwidth and / or longer distances.
The LAN segment also performed well in 2018 increasing by almost four per cent. Copper products and, in particular, copper cable sales, were boosted by increasing uptake of Cat 6A, the uptake of plenum in Canada and the implementation of the Construction Products Regulation in Europe, which recommends enhanced fire-resistant cables.