About five years ago we established a set of longer-term targets for our financial metrics, which, in combination, would achieve an adjusted operating margin between 7% and 10%.

To achieve this goal, we targeted annual revenue growth to be faster than the market, adjusted gross margin in the low- to mid-40s percentage range, and adjusted operating expense as a percentage of revenue in the low- to mid-30%s.

We have now achieved or exceeded these targets. 2015 was our best year yet. Our 2015 adjusted operating margin was 11%, 4.5 percentage points better than 2014, and above our long-term target. We achieved this with a 14% compound annual growth rate for revenue since 2010, 50% faster than market growth.* We are now consistently posting gross margins in the mid-40%s, and OpEx as a percentage of revenue in 2015 was 34%.

*Source: Infonetics, Dell’Oro, Ovum, and Heavy Reading with Ciena analysis.