A booming market for fibre optic telecoms products and services in China is driving growth in sales of testing equipment, according to new research. The Chinese market for fibre optic test equipment will more than double in value in the next five years, according to research firm, Frost and Sullivan.

Demand for test hardware in China is coming not only from domestic demand from fibre network installers, but also from designers and manufacturers of fibre optic devices for export.

Frost and Sullivan estimates that the country's market for testing equipment was worth $76.9m last year, and will increase in value to $143.4m in 2012.

China's market for fibre optic sensors is already the second largest in the world after the US, and represents more than 39 per cent of an Asia-Pacific market predicted to be worth $190m by 2009, according to the Electronics.ca Research Network.

Urban networks are offering greatly increased bandwidth by bringing high capacity fibre optic connections closer to the end user via so-called FTTx services such as fibre to the home (FTTH).

"Most end users of fibre optic test equipment are choosing this method of bringing higher bandwidth to their customers, thereby driving the growth of fibre optic test equipment vendors," said Frost and Sullivan research analyst, David Ren in a written briefing.

"Multipurpose test equipment attracts buyers with appealing features such as higher layer testing and reasonable price,” Red added.

"Vendors should develop new products and expand their portfolio to meet the ever-increasing demands of end users, as this can make existing products obsolete and restrain the growth of the secondary market," he advised.