Lumentum CEO: 2029 Capacity Nearly Fully Booked

C114 News, October 9 (Shui Yi) — Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston said in an interview in Tokyo on Friday that demand for some products will remain about 70% unmet next year, while other products will still have a 30% demand gap through 2028. "Our 2029 capacity is almost fully booked."

Michael Hurlston said: "We are doing everything we can to catch up and ramp production as fast as possible, but there is still a huge gap versus customer demand. Our capacity is completely sold out, and we see no point where supply and demand balance."

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, ended June 27, 2026, Lumentum reported revenue of $1.01 billion, up 109% year over year and 24% sequentially. This marks Lumentum's eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth and its third straight quarter of sequential growth above 20%, with non-GAAP gross margin breaking through the 50% mark.

Previously, Lumentum management guided for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 to quarterly revenue of $1.25 billion, with operating margin rising further from 36.6% to 39.5%-40.5%.

Optical communications market research firm LightCounting said in its latest report: "We may be standing at the peak of this supercycle." The firm expects the Ethernet optical module market to grow 120% in 2026.

The firm also said that uncertainty in market growth from 2027 to 2031 has increased significantly. From 2027 onward, this "explosive growth" could continue. But even in that scenario, it assumes market growth will slow from 120% in 2026 to 76% in 2027 and to 20% by 2031. In terms of growth rate, we are certainly at the peak of this supercycle.