Just how vertically integrated are AAOI, LITE, and COHR?
Vertical integration matters a lot in transceivers.
The company that controls more of the optical stack could have better supply visibility, tighter cost control, faster product iteration, and more ways to protect margin.
But not all vertical integration looks the same.
Some companies are deepest inside the transceiver itself. Others control a broader set of optical components across the stack. Others focus on the most valuable layers and use outside partners for scale.
There has been a lot of uncertainty on X around just how vertically integrated these companies really are. That is fair. LLM’s get this wrong all the time.
So I dug through the transcripts, presentations, and filings to map out what each company actually keeps in-house.
The cleanest way to frame these three is this:
AAOI appears to be among the deepest integrated inside the transceiver stack.
Lumentum is highly integrated in the optical core and uses a hybrid model to scale.
Coherent appears to have the broadest optical stack of the three.
Let’s unpack this..