Lumentum Rumored To Welcome A New Round Of Layoffs, Or Accounted For 10% Of The Total Number Of Employees Worldwide

According to foreign media reports, Lumentum, the world's leading manufacturer of optical and photonic devices, will lay off 750 employees, accounting for 10% of its global workforce (according to the official data of its current workforce of about 7,500 people).
The layoffs will take place as part of its global reorganization plan. Among the cuts are 82 jobs at three locations in San Jose, in the Bay Area of the U.S. - these layoffs are expected to begin on May 6. Lumentum's Ottawa office, which employs more than 300 people, could also be affected by these changes. These reports have not been confirmed.
Last month, Lumentum reported results for its second fiscal quarter of fiscal 2024, which ended December 30, 2023, down from the previous quarter. The earnings report showed that Lumentum's net income for the quarter was $366.8 million, down 37.9% year-over-year.
Founded in 2015 as a spin-off from JDS Uniphase, the communications and commercial optical products business unit, the company is headquartered in San Jose, California, with manufacturing and research facilities in North America, Europe and Asia.Lumentum employs more than 7,000 people worldwide, with more than 300 at its Canadian headquarters in Ottawa.
Lumentum is not the only company in the optical communications business laying off employees at the moment. Juniper Networks, another manufacturer focusing on high-tech networking equipment and systems, has also formally notified the California Department of Labor of impending layoffs of Bay Area workers, according to the news.
Optical Devices Business Performs Mixed
Lumentum is at the forefront of photonics innovation, partnering with customers to enable the future of data centers and the networks that connect them. The company designs and manufactures optical and photonic products for industries such as telecommunications, datacom, industrial and consumer markets, and its product range includes lasers, photonic integrated circuits and optical subsystems for applications such as optical networking and 3D sensing.
Lumentum offers employment opportunities in a variety of areas including research and development, manufacturing, product management, sales and marketing, administration and human resources.
At a time when bandwidth demand for artificial intelligence data centers is surging, Lumentum is strategically expanding its leading optical transceiver manufacturing capabilities. It is investing in state-of-the-art production lines at its manufacturing facility in Thailand and expects to increase capacity this summer to meet the growing 800G/1.6T demand from multiple customers.
However, based on sluggish freight capex and customer conditions, the company expects customer inventory digestion to continue throughout fiscal 2024.
Although there have been many recent positive developments in the optical communications and optical device space, it was rumored to have lost a big order from U.S. telecom customer Ciena in April last year - Ciena began to stop ordering optical devices from Lumentum. Last December, Lumentum shut down two NeoPhotonics factories in China.
Apple's VCSEL laser supply share was cut
Also quite noteworthy is Lumentum's role as a supplier of VCSEL lasers for Apple smartphones. According to Yole data, in 2022 Lumentum occupied 37% of the global VCSEL market share, becoming the second largest player in addition to Coherent.
However, in February last year, Apple's well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (Ming-Chi Kuo) had a series of tweets broke the news that Sony will replace Lumentum (design), Apple iPhone 15 Pro series smartphone models LiDAR (LiDAR) scanner VCSELs as the exclusive supplier.
Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out that with the increased supply of Sony and II-VI, Lumentum/Stabilized Semiconductor's market share of VCSELs for iPhone smartphones will decline from about 50% at the launch of the iPhone 14 series to 30-40% for the iPhone 15 series. At the same time, he analyzed that, due to this change, Lumentum will face long-term structural risks in the VCSEL market, Sony may continue to other brand customers to steal Lumentum / Stabilized orders.