Prysmian (PRY.MI): Optical fiber S/D to balance by 2028

Research evidence excerpt

Prysmian (PRY.MI): Optical fiber S/D to balance by 2028

Goldman Sachs Prysmian (PRY.MI)

pricing in China surged 5x to 6x YoY in early 2026 while European prices increased 3x to

4x. We expect optical fiber manufacturers to benefit, and forecast Prysmian’s Digital

Solutions (DS) OSG at 13% in 2026/27. We expect EBITDA margins to expand from

16.6% in 2025 towards 27.6% by 2028 on the back of this (here).

We stress-test our S/D model through five scenarios:

n Our base case considers demand growing at a 4% CAGR 2025-30E given 12% of

the market in 2025 was exposed to DCs (growing at c.13%, underpinned by GSe

datacenter power demand volumes) and 15% of the market related to drone

demand (growing at c.6%), with the remainder exposed to telecoms and only

modestly growing; in this timeframe, we expect supply to grow at 6% including

announced expansion already committed (as well as Prysmian’s 40-50% planned

capacity expansion). That said, we see demand significantly outstripping supply over

the next two years (10%/15% excess in 2026/27 respectively), with current

investments in fiber capacity coming online over 2028-29 easing that tightness. Our

analysis suggests the S/D imbalance should turn in 2028, with overcapacity

afterwards, unless Datacenter growth exceeds 30% or fiber density in AI DCs

becomes 2.5x higher than traditional.

n Three “stronger demand scenarios”, where: (1) we take Prysmian’s datacenter

power forecasts per its first-quarter results (p.4 here). This would lead to c.3%

undersupply by 2030; (2) we assume AI datacenters will represent 100% of the

datacenter mix by 2030. This would lead to c.2% undersupply by 2030; and (3) we

take fiber density in AI datacenters as 10x that of traditional datacenters, per

commentary from Corning.