Infinera Corp - Annual Report: 2011 (Form 10-K)

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

OR

Commission file number: 001-33486

Infinera Corporation

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

140 Caspian Court

Sunnyvale, CA 94089

(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)

(408) 572-5200

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ¨    No  x

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ¨    No  x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  x    No  ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  x    No  ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.    ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ¨    No  x

The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock, $0.001 par value per share, held by non-affiliates of the registrant on June 24, 2011, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $560,534,349 (based on the closing sales price of the registrant’s common stock on that date). Shares of the registrant’s common stock held by each officer and director and each person who owns more than 5% or more of the outstanding common stock of the registrant have been excluded in that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes. As of February 29, 2012, 109,448,819 shares of the registrant’s common stock, $0.001 par value per share, were issued and outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

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INFINERA CORPORATION

ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2011

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Part I

Overview

Infinera Corporation (“we” or “Infinera”) provides optical networking equipment, software and services to communications service providers, internet content providers, cable operators and subsea network operators (collectively, “Service Providers”) across the globe. Optical networks are deployed by Service Providers facing increasing demands for transmission capacity for high-speed Internet access, 3G/4G mobile broadband, business Ethernet services, cloud-based services and wholesale bandwidth services. We first introduced the Infinera Digital Optical Network architecture to Service Providers in 2004. This architecture is based on optical network platforms built with Infinera’s unique photonic integrated circuits (“PICs”). As of December 31, 2011, 98 Service Providers have selected Infinera’s platforms to efficiently scale the capacity of their optical networks.

Infinera manufactures what we believe to be the world’s only commercially-deployed, large-scale PICs. Our first generation PICs transmit and receive 100 Gigabits per second (“Gbps”) of optical transmission capacity and incorporate the functionality of over 60 discrete optical functions into a pair of indium phosphide chips approximately the size of a fingernail. Our next-generation PICs are planned for commercial availability in 2012 and will transmit and receive 500 Gbps, incorporating over 600 discrete optical functions into a pair of indium phosphide chips. Our PICs are combined with high performance Optical Transport Network (“OTN”) switching to enable our differentiated Digital Optical Network architecture to offer Service Providers a unique combination of highly-scalable transmission capacity and the bandwidth management tools to efficiently utilize such capacity across platforms that are easy to operate.

Many Service Providers are looking for new network architectures to respond to continued demand for bandwidth across their networks. These architectural changes include scaling optical transmission capacities from 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps and integrating OTN switching capabilities within the optical transport platform. Infinera’s DTN platform currently delivers 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps transmission capacity combined with integrated switching capabilities. Infinera’s DTN-X platform will support 100 Gbps of transmission capacity and will also integrate our 5 Terabits per second (“Tbps”) OTN switch. The DTN-X platform will leverage the unique capabilities of our 500 Gbps PICs to deliver high-capacity transmission while optimizing power, cooling, space and operational simplicity. The DTN-X platform is expected to be in volume production in 2012 and is currently in lab trials with Service Providers.

Similar to how silicon integrated circuits changed the dynamics of the computing industry by increasing computing performance and reliability while reducing physical size, power consumption and heat dissipation, we believe Infinera’s PICs change the dynamics of the optical network industry by increasing optical performance and reliability while reducing physical size, power consumption and heat dissipation. We fabricate PICs and develop the software and hardware that together comprise the optical network platforms at the foundation of our Digital Optical Network architecture. We sell these optical network platforms to Service Providers along with a comprehensive suite of installation, management and support services. We believe that Service Providers facing increasing demand for greater optical network transmission capacity and the need for more favorable network economics will adopt our DTN-X platform with a 100 Gbps solution once it is broadly available.

“Infinera,” “Infinera DTN,” “Infinera DTN-X,” “ATN,” “Infinera Digital Optical Network,” “FlexCoherent,” and other trademarks or service marks of Infinera Corporation appearing in this report are the property of Infinera Corporation. This report contains additional trade names, trademarks and service marks of other companies. We do not intend our use or display of other companies’ trade names, trademarks or service marks to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, these other companies.

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Infinera was founded in December 2000, originally operated under the name “Zepton Networks,” and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. We are incorporated in the State of Delaware. Our principal executive offices are located at 140 Caspian Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. Our telephone number is (408) 572-5200.

Industry Background

Optical networking equipment carries digital information using light waves over fiber optic networks. The advent of wavelength division multiplexing (“WDM”) systems has enabled the transmission of larger amounts of data by using multiple wavelengths over a single optical fiber. Service Providers often use WDM systems to carry communications traffic between cities, referred to as long-haul networks, and within large metropolitan areas, referred to as metro networks. Fiber optic networks are generally capable of carrying most types of communications traffic, from conventional long-distance telephone calls to e-mails and web sessions to high-definition video streaming. As service traffic grows, Service Providers add transmission capacity to existing optical networks or purchase and deploy additional systems to keep pace with bandwidth demands and service expansion.

We believe that a number of trends in the communications industry are increasing demand for network capacity and ultimately will increase demand for optical networking systems. These trends include growth in bandwidth-intensive services like video, the proliferation of 4G and WiFi mobile broadband due to the availability of smartphones and tablets, the emergence of cloud services, and the continued expansion of online business and information services.

We believe that Service Providers are seeking the following solutions that will allow them to increase their profit margins and/or expand their service offerings:

We believe that Infinera’s Digital Optical Network architecture is uniquely enabled to deliver improvements in these areas compared to competitive WDM systems that still rely on discrete optical components. We believe that our Digital Optical Network architecture enables Service Providers to deploy reliable, high-capacity, efficient optical network solutions that are easy to use and improve the integration between the layers of Service Provider networks.

The Infinera Strategy

Our goal is to be a preeminent provider of optical networking systems to Service Providers around the world. Key aspects of our strategy to achieve this goal are as follows:

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Products

Infinera DTN Platform

The Infinera DTN platform utilizes our PIC technology to enable digital processing and management of data with the capability to generate WDM wavelengths and to add, drop, switch, manage, protect and restore network traffic digitally using integrated OTN switching. The DTN platform can automate the connection of circuits and provisioning of new services without costly and cumbersome manual intervention.

Our DTN platform is modular in design to provide Service Providers with the ability to add capacity in a cost-efficient manner. The initial deployment of our DTN platform at a customer site involves the installation of a line system (including common equipment, such as a chassis, amplifiers, management controllers and related equipment). Service Providers can increase the capacity to the DTN platform by purchasing our Digital Line Modules, Tributary Adapter Modules and Tributary Optical Modules. We believe that the density and the modular architecture of the DTN platform enable significant flexibility and scalability for Service Providers. Our current DTN platform delivers 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps wavelengths enabling fiber capacity from 1.6 Tbps to 6.4 Tbps.

Our DTN platform is carrier-class, which means that it complies with applicable Telcordia and equivalent major international standards for central office-based network elements. Our DTN platform supports a broad range of optical service interfaces including Ethernet (1 Gigabit Ethernet (“GbE”), 10 GbE, 40 GbE and 100 GbE) and separate synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy.

Infinera DTN Platform for Submarine Network Applications

For submarine transport applications, the DTN platform can be used as a Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (“SLTE”) node, doubling the total optical capacity of many traditional

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submarine systems to a maximum of up to 6.4 Tbps and distances of up to 8,000 km. The DTN platform also provides dispersion compensation that is significantly simpler and cheaper than the per-channel dispersion management of many existing SLTE systems. Our DTN platform leverages its digital operations and software automation to allow Infinera’s SLTE solution to significantly reduce engineering complexity for submarine cable upgrades and to enable lower cost, faster deployment of additional capacity on existing systems.

Infinera Line System

Infinera’s DTN platforms are built upon and connected to one another using an optical “line system.” The Infinera Line System (“ILS”) provides optical amplification and enables the management communication channels between network nodes. ILS currently supports up to 6.4 Tbps of optical capacity on a single fiber. Infinera’s bandwidth management capabilities allow our customers to manage and utilize the available capacity as a single pool of bandwidth to satisfy customer requirements, including services at speeds from 1 Gbps up to 40 Gbps. In addition to providing for increased capacity and reach, ILS also lays the foundation for future Infinera systems and is designed to scale with the DTN-X platform to support up to 8 Tbps of optical capacity on a single fiber pair. ILS is fully integrated into Infinera’s management and control software and can be managed seamlessly across DTN platforms.

Infinera DTN-X Platform

In September 2011, we launched the Infinera DTN-X platform and expect to begin volume shipments in 2012. The DTN-X platform is based on our third generation 500 Gbps PICs that integrate more than 600 discrete optical functions delivering the world’s first 500 Gbps FlexCoherent super-channels based on 100 Gbps channels. The DTN-X platform will deliver a step function improvement in network economics to help Service Providers more efficiently manage the explosive growth of traffic brought on by video, mobile and cloud-based services. The DTN-X platform is a next-generation multi-terabit packet optical transport platform that is fundamentally three products in one:

We believe that the convergence of network layers can only be achieved when the best in class performance of each individual layer is realized in a single platform. In most competitive solutions, a Service Provider must make a choice between maximizing either the system’s transmission capacity or its OTN switching capability. The DTN-X platform, unlike other competitive offerings, was designed to converge switching with DWDM transport without compromising overall system functionality. The purpose-built design centers around three unique technology building blocks – PICs paired with FlexCoherent technologies, custom switching application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”) and intelligent Generalized MPLS (“GMPLS”) software. We believe that it will be the only platform available in the market that will allow all components, including the optical functions based on our PIC technology, to scale in a manner consistent with Moore’s Law-like semiconductor manufacturing economics and, therefore, deliver simultaneously best-of-breed switching, integrated with best-of-breed DWDM.

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Infinera ATN Platform

The Infinera ATN platform is a state-of-the-art coarse and DWDM aggregation and transport solution designed with 400 Gbps of total capacity. The ATN platform can be used to extend the Digital Optical Network architecture benefits of the DTN platform, and can also be used as a standalone WDM access system.

Implementing numerous features in support of simplicity of use and operation, the ATN platform is a cost-effective, efficient multiservice aggregation and transport platform. The ATN platform supports direct wavelength connectivity to DTN nodes, reducing equipment costs and providing unique network management capabilities across our integrated Digital Optical Networks.

Infinera IQ Network Operating System

The Infinera IQ Network Operating System is our embedded software operating system which enables our customers to simplify and speed up the tasks they perform to deliver, differentiate, and manage services and to optimize the utilization of their networks. The IQ Network Operating System for the DTN platform utilizes GMPLS for end-to-end provisioning, protection and restoration services, and a host of performance monitoring and software-definable testing capabilities. The ATN platform supports end-to-end provisioning through software features similar to the DTN platform.

Infinera Management Suite

The Infinera Management Suite is a broad set of standards-based network and element management tools and operations support system integration interfaces that are used by Service Providers to manage their DTN and ATN platforms. Our management suite software includes our Digital Network Administrator, a scalable, robust, feature-rich element management system, and our Graphical Node Manager, an easy-to-use web-based management interface. Our hardware products, the DTN and ATN platforms, as well as our future DTN-X platform, are managed in an integrated fashion by the Infinera Management Suite.

Technology

Digital Optical Network Architecture

Infinera was founded with a vision of increasing the functionality and improving the economics of optical transport systems. To that end, our core engineering team consists of optical component and systems experts who have collaborated to create an innovative optical networking architecture that combines the delivery of large amounts of low-cost bandwidth with distributed switching and the embedded software intelligence of bandwidth management to manage larger networks and deliver high-capacity services quickly and cost-effectively. We have focused our efforts, time and capital on developing our Digital Optical Network architecture and our system products.

Our Digital Optical Network architecture is designed to allow our customers to expand service reach, expedite service provisioning, ensure reliability and more effectively manage, monitor and scale their networks by processing data digitally rather than in analog format. We believe that the key to delivering this capability in a cost-effective manner is integrating the functionality of multiple discrete devices into a single set of semiconductor chips. This integration allows us to eliminate separate optical packages for each discrete optical device, which we believe is the largest cost challenge facing traditional systems. This integration has further enabled us to provide additional functionality and intelligence to our optical networking systems.

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Infinera PICs

We believe that our proprietary PICs are a key source of our value proposition and competitive advantage. We manufacture and package our PICs at our own facilities for use exclusively with our DTN and DTN-X platforms. We began the design and manufacture of our PICs shortly after we were founded in December 2000. We employ a multi-disciplinary approach towards the development and manufacture of our PICs, with significant interaction between our manufacturing, system engineering and advanced technology groups. As a leader in the development of photonic integration, we have protected the intellectual property associated with our PIC manufacturing through a combination of trade secrets, patents and contractual protections. We believe that as a result of the combination of the multiple disciplines that were required to develop our PIC, together with the intellectual property protections that we have established, it will be difficult for others to duplicate the technology we have developed.

Our DTN platform transmits optical capacity, utilizing a pair of PICs, in increments of 100 Gbps of optical capacity, based on 10 Gbps optical signals. Our transmitter PIC integrates the functionality of 51 optical functions onto a single chip, including lasers and modulators. In addition, our receiver PIC integrates the functionality of 11 optical functions onto a single chip, including photo-detectors and an optical de-multiplexer. We have designed our next-generation PICs to transmit optical capacity in increments of 500 Gbps, based on 100 Gbps optical signals. Our next-generation PICs are designed to integrate the functionality of over 600 discrete functions into a pair of chips. We believe that large-scale photonic integration enables the application of Moore’s Law-like semiconductor manufacturing economics to optical networking, allowing future optical transport cost reductions to be viably sustained on a cost curve defined by volume manufacturing efficiencies, greater functional integration, increased device density, and manufacturing yield enhancements.

Coherent Optical Transmission

The term “coherent transmission” generally implies the combination of a number of optical transmission technologies, namely: phase modulation, polarization multiplexing, coherent detection and advanced digital signal processing. The combination of these “coherent technologies” allows higher data capacities to be transmitted over the existing optical fiber infrastructure, typically using the same or better design rules than those used for 10 Gbps transmission. A coherent transmitter uses a more complex optical circuit and requires a significantly greater number of optical components. Leveraging our lead in photonic integration, combined with our proprietary coherent technology, Infinera has been able to implement five channels of 100 Gbps capacity on a single pair of chips, using phase modulation with direct coherent detection, and a highly-sophisticated digital signal processing capability.

Super-Channels

Infinera’s DTN-X platform will support five channels of 100 Gbps capacity in a single line card. This 500 Gbps pool of bandwidth is managed as a super-channel that can be turned up in a single operational motion. Competitive solutions would require the deployment of five discrete line modules, each turned up with its own operational motion, in order to achieve the same system capacity. This results in competitive advantages not only in the areas of space, power consumption and long-term system reliability but also in a significant reduction in operational costs per Gbps of bandwidth.

OTN Switching

OTN offers a highly-structured approach to service multiplexing and switching and enables customers to reduce operational costs and more efficiently utilize higher-capacity bandwidth in their long-haul networks. Our unique PIC technology will allow our DTN-X platform to fully integrate DWDM transport and OTN switching capabilities in a single platform without compromising overall system functionality or capacity.

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Customers

As of December 31, 2011, we have sold our Digital Optical Networks for deployment to 98 customers worldwide, including customers in each of the following customer segments:

Some of our announced customers include Colt, Cox Communications, Deutsche Telekom, Equinix, Inc., Interoute, KVH, TeliaSonera, Level 3 Communications (“Level 3”), NTT, OTE, Pacnet and XO Communications. In addition, we currently have 33 customer deployments where customers have purchased our ATN platform to extend the Digital Optical Network experience to their metro edge deployments. We believe that in the longer-term, the metro DWDM market represents one of our most promising growth opportunities. We do not have long-term sales commitments from our customers.

In 2011, Level 3 accounted for less than 10% of our revenue, and approximately 15% and 17% of our revenue in 2010 and 2009, respectively. We had no customer that represented over 10% of our revenue for 2011 and no customer other than Level 3 that represented over 10% of our revenue for 2010 and 2009.

Support and Services

We offer our customers a range of product offerings, including 24/7/365 technical support for all hardware and software products, a full range of deployment and installation services, spares management, first line maintenance services, on-site technical services, professional services, product technical training and extended product warranties. In 2011, we increased our outsourced network monitoring and management services, provided from our two Technical Assistance Centers, one in Annapolis Junction, Maryland, and the other in the United Kingdom. We also expanded our technical support capabilities in APAC to include a new facility in Hong Kong, providing a local environment for product demonstrations, training and support. Our customer support services are provided by our employees and augmented where necessary by strategic support partners. We believe that providing ongoing customer and technical support is critical to successful long-term relationships with, and follow-on sales to, our customers. We are committed to providing our customers with the highest levels of technical support and service on a global scale.

Sales and Marketing

We market and sell our products and related support services primarily through our direct sales force, supported by marketing and product management personnel. We may also use distribution or support partners to enter new markets or when requested by a potential customer. Our sales team has significant previous experience with the buying process and sales cycles typical of high-value telecommunications products. We expect to continue to add sales and support employees as we grow our business.

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The sales process for our products entails discussions with prospective customers, analyzing their existing networks and identifying how they can utilize our systems capabilities within their networks. This process requires developing strong customer relationships, and we expect to leverage our sales force and customer support capabilities to establish relationships with both domestic and international Service Providers.

Over the course of the sales cycle, Service Providers often test our products before buying. Prior to commercial deployment, the Service Provider will generally perform a field trial of our products. Upon successful completion, the Service Provider generally accepts the products installed in its network and may continue with commercial deployment of additional products. We anticipate that our sales cycle, from initial contact with a Service Provider through the signing of a purchase agreement, may, in some cases, take several quarters.

Direct Sales Force. Our sales team sells directly to Service Providers worldwide. We maintain sales presences throughout the United States, as well as in a number of international locations, including Argentina, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Russia, and the United Kingdom. We expanded our sales force around the world during 2011 as we prepared to address new geographical markets and in advance of selling our expanded portfolio of products. We expect any incremental sales headcount additions in the near-term to be limited to areas where sales achievements are ahead of planned amounts.

Indirect Sales Force. We have and will continue to employ business consultants, resale partners and sales agents to assist in our sales efforts and to accelerate and strengthen our customer relationships. We expect to work with business partners to assist our customers in the sale, deployment and maintenance of our systems and have entered into distribution and resale agreements to facilitate the sale of our products.

Marketing and Product Management. Our product management team is responsible for defining the product features and development plan required to maximize our success in the marketplace. Product management supports our sales efforts with product and application expertise. Our marketing team works to create demand for our products by communicating our value proposition and differentiation through direct customer interaction, public relations, attendance at tradeshows and other events, and via the Internet and other marketing channels.

Research and Development

Continued investment in research and development is critical to our business. To this end, we have assembled a team of engineers with expertise in various fields, including systems, sub-systems and components. Our research and development efforts are currently focused in Sunnyvale, California, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Beijing, China, Bangalore, India and Kanata, Canada. We have invested significant time and financial resources into the development of our Digital Optical Network architecture, and our DTN-X, DTN and ATN platforms, including the IQ Network Operating System and Management Suite software. We will continue to expand our product offerings and capabilities in the future and plan to dedicate significant resources to these continued research and development efforts. We are continually increasing the scalability and software features of our current platforms. We are also working to develop new generations of PICs, and we intend to enable further integration in our Digital Optical Network architecture through continued research and development.

Our research and development expenses were $127.1 million, $118.5 million and $97.3 million in 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively.

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Employees

As of December 31, 2011, we had 1,181 employees. A total of 382 of those employees were located outside of the United States. None of our U.S. employees are subject to a collective bargaining agreement. Employees in certain foreign jurisdictions may be represented by local workers’ councils and/or collective bargaining agreements, as may be customary or required in those jurisdictions. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we consider our employee relationships to be good.

Manufacturing

We have invested significant time and capital to develop and improve the manufacturing process that we use to produce and package our PICs. This includes significant investments in personnel, equipment and the facilities needed to manufacture and package our PICs in Sunnyvale, California and Allentown, Pennsylvania. We also have invested in automating our manufacturing process and in training and maintaining the quality of our manufacturing workforce. As a leader in the development of photonic integration, our manufacturing processes have been developed over several years and are protected by a significant number of trade secrets. We believe that the trade secrets associated with the manufacturing and packaging of our PICs provide us with a significant competitive advantage.

We use both domestic and international manufacturing partners to manufacture certain components of our products. Our contract manufacturers manufacture our products based on our specifications and bill of materials. In addition, the lead times associated with certain components are lengthy and preclude rapid changes in product specifications or delivery schedules. Although we experienced some delays in late 2011 in connection with the floods in Thailand, to date, we have not experienced any significant delays or material unanticipated costs resulting from the use of these contract manufacturers; however, such a strategy involves certain risks, including the potential absence of adequate capacity, the unavailability of or interruptions in access to certain process technologies, and reduced control over delivery schedules, manufacturing yields, quality and costs. Despite outsourcing manufacturing operations for cost-effective scale and flexibility, we perform rigorous in-house quality control testing to ensure the reliability of our products.

Shortages in components that we use in our products are possible and our ability to predict the availability of such components may be limited. Some of these components are available only from single or limited sources of supply. Our products include some components that are proprietary in nature and only available from a single source, as well as some components that are generally available from a number of suppliers. Recently, we have increased our reliance on third parties to develop and manufacture components for our products. In some cases, significant time would be required to establish relationships with alternate suppliers or providers of proprietary components. We do not have any long-term contracts with any component providers that guarantee supply of components or their manufacturing services. If we encounter difficulty continuing our relationship with a supplier, or if a supplier is unable to meet our needs, we may encounter manufacturing delays that could adversely affect our business. Our ability to timely deliver products to our customers would be materially adversely impacted if we needed to qualify replacements for any of a number of the components used in our products.

We believe that our current manufacturing facilities can accommodate an increase in capacity for PIC production sufficient for our current product offerings. In 2011, we expanded our PIC FAB manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California in preparation for volume shipments of our 500 Gbps PICs in 2012.

Backlog

As of December 31, 2011, our backlog was $56.8 million. These orders are subject to future events that could cause the amount or timing of the related revenue to change, and, in certain cases,

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may be cancelled without penalty. We do not believe that backlog should be viewed as an indicator of future performance. A backlogged order may not result in revenue in a particular period, and the actual revenue may not be equal to our backlog amounts. Our presentation of backlog may not be comparable with that of other companies in our industry.

Competition

The optical communications network equipment market is highly competitive. Competition in this market is based on any one or a combination of the following factors:

Competition in the optical networking market is dominated by a number of very large, multi-national companies. Many of our competitors have substantially greater name recognition and technical, financial, and marketing resources, and greater manufacturing capacity, as well as better established relationships with the incumbent carriers, than we do. Many of our competitors have more resources to develop or acquire, and more experience in developing or acquiring, new products and technologies and in creating market awareness for these products and technologies. In addition, many of our competitors have the financial resources to offer competitive products at below market pricing levels that could prevent us from competing effectively. Further, many of our competitors have built long-standing relationships with some of our prospective customers and a number of competitors have the ability to provide financing to customers and could, therefore, have an inherent advantage in selling products to those customers. Strong growth of bandwidth demand is driving the need for higher fiber capacity systems. Some of our competitors offer 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps solutions to customers today allowing them to increase the capacity of their fiber. In September 2011, we launched our DTN-X platform, a 100 Gbps solution, with expected volume production in 2012. The DTN-X platform will incorporate our 500 Gbps PICs, 5 Terabit OTN switch and will combine competitive fiber capacity with the unique features of the Digital Optical Network. In order to respond to customer needs in the interim, we have introduced a non-PIC based 40 Gbps solution that will increase the fiber capacity of the DTN platform from 1.6 Tbps to up to 6.4 Tbps.

Our competitors include current WDM suppliers, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena Corporation, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Fujitsu Limited, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., NEC Corporation, Nokia-Siemens Networks, Tellabs and ZTE Corporation. These companies have historically set the competitive benchmarks for price and functionality. There are also smaller companies, including startups, that have announced plans or developed products that would compete for long-haul and metro optical transport business. We also face additional competition in certain market segments from companies which offer one or more products that compete directly or indirectly with our products. In addition, we may compete with other companies as we expand into new markets or as other companies develop products that are competitive with us.

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Intellectual Property

Our success as a company depends upon our ability to protect our core technology and intellectual property. To accomplish this, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks, as well as customary contractual protections.

We rely primarily on trade secret protection for our PIC and PIC manufacturing processes, including design, fabrication and testing of our PICs. However, there can be no assurances that trade secrets will be sufficient to provide us with a competitive advantage or that others have not or will not reverse engineer our designs or discover, develop or disclose the same or similar designs and manufacturing processes.

As of December 31, 2011, we held 163 U.S. patents and three international patents expiring between 2021 and 2031, and held 178 U.S. and 28 foreign pending patent applications. We do not know whether any of our pending patent applications will result in the issuance of patents or whether the examination process will require us to narrow our claims.

We may not receive competitive advantages from the rights granted under our patents and other intellectual property. Any patents granted to us may be contested, circumvented or invalidated over the course of our business, and we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing these patents. Therefore, the exact effect of the protection of these patents cannot be predicted with certainty.

We believe that the frequency of assertions of patent infringement is increasing as patent holders, including entities that are not in our industry and who purchase patents as an investment or to monetize such rights by obtaining royalties, use such actions as a competitive tactic as well as a source of additional revenue. We have been sued by Cheetah Omni LLC (“Cheetah”) and Cambrian Science Corporation (“Cambrian”) for alleged infringement of their patents. See the section set forth in Part II, Item 3. “Legal Proceedings” for additional information regarding these lawsuits. Any claim of infringement from a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against such claims, and could distract our management from running our business. Furthermore, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages. A judgment could also include an injunction or other court order that could prevent us from selling our products. In addition, we might be required to seek a license for the use of such intellectual property, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Alternatively, we may be required to develop non-infringing technology, which would require significant effort and expense and may ultimately not be successful.

In addition to trade secret and patent protections, we generally control access to and the use of our proprietary software and other confidential information. This protection is accomplished through a combination of internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors, customers, and partners, and through a combination of U.S. and international copyright laws. We incorporate a number of third-party software programs into our products pursuant to license agreements.

We license some of our software pursuant to agreements that impose restrictions on our customers’ ability to use such software, such as prohibiting reverse engineering and limiting the use of copies. We also seek to avoid disclosure of our intellectual property by relying on non-disclosure and assignment of intellectual property agreements with our employees and consultants that acknowledge our exclusive ownership of all intellectual property developed by the individual during the course of his or her work with us. The agreements also require that each person maintain the confidentiality of all proprietary information disclosed to them. Other parties may not comply with the terms of their agreements with us, and we may not be able to enforce our rights adequately against these parties. We also rely on contractual rights to establish and protect our proprietary rights in our products.

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We incorporate open source software into our products. Although we monitor our use of open source software closely, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our products. In such event, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our products, to re-engineer our products or to discontinue the sale of our products in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis, any of which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Environmental Matters

Our business and operations are subject to environmental laws in various jurisdictions around the world including the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulations adopted by the European Union. We seek to operate our business in compliance with such laws. We are currently subject to laws relating to the materials and content of our products and certain requirements relating to product take back and recycling. Environmental regulation is increasing, particularly outside of the United States, and we expect that our international operations will be subject to additional environmental compliance requirements, which may expose us to additional costs. To date, our compliance costs relating to environmental regulations have not resulted in a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition.

Business Segment Data and Our Foreign Operations

We operate in the single industry segment of optical networking systems. Information concerning revenues, results of operations and revenues by geographic area is set forth in Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and in Note 15, “Segment Information,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, both of which are incorporated herein by reference. Information concerning identifiable assets is also set forth in Note 15, “Segment Information,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. Information on risks attendant to our foreign operations is set forth below in Item 1A. “Risk Factors.”

Executive Officers and Directors

Our executive officers and directors, and their ages and positions as of December 31, 2011, are set forth below:

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Thomas J. Fallon has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since January 2010 and as a member of our board of directors since July 2009. Mr. Fallon served as our Chief Operating Officer from October 2006 to December 2009 and as our Vice President of Engineering and Operations from April 2004 to September 2006. From August 2003 to March 2004, Mr. Fallon was Vice President, Corporate Quality and Development Operations of Cisco Systems, Inc., a networking and telecommunications company. From May 2001 to August 2003, Mr. Fallon served as Cisco’s General Manager of the Optical Transport Business Unit. Mr. Fallon is currently a member of the Engineering Advisory Board of the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Fallon holds a B.S.M.E. and M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

David F. Welch, Ph.D. co-founded our company and has served as our Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer since January 2004 and as a member of our board of directors since October 2010. Dr. Welch previously served as our Chief Development Officer/Chief Technology Officer from May 2001 to January 2005, as our Chief Marketing Officer from January 2005 to January 2009, as a member of our board of directors from May 2001 to November 2006. From February 2001 to April 2001, Dr. Welch served as Chief Technology Officer of the Transmission Products Group of JDS Uniphase Corporation, an optical component company. From January 1985 to February 2001, Dr. Welch served in various executive roles, including Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Corporate Development of SDL Inc., an optical component company. Dr. Welch is the Founder and President of Students Matter, a non-profit organization focused on improving K-12 public education in California. Dr. Welch holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Dr. Welch holds over 130 patents, and has been awarded the Adolph Lomb Medal, Joseph Fraunhofer Award and the John Tyndall Award in recognition of his technical contributions to the optical industry. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Ita M. Brennan has served as our Chief Financial Officer since July 2010. Prior to becoming our Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Brennan served as our Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller since July 2006. From September 1997 to July 2006, Ms. Brennan held various roles at Maxtor Corporation, an information storage solutions company, including Vice President of Finance of Worldwide Operations. Ms. Brennan is a chartered accountant and public accounting alumna of Deloitte and Touche, having worked at the firm in Ireland and the U.S.

Ronald D. Martin has served as our Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales since August 2009. From November 2007 to June 2009, Mr. Martin served as Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer and President of ADVA Optical Networking’s North American subsidiary, an optical networking company. From May 2001 to November 2007, Mr. Martin served as Vice President and General Manager of the optical business unit of Cisco Systems, Inc., a networking and telecommunications company. From May 1987 to May 2001, Mr. Martin served as Chief Operating Officer at Fujitsu Network Communications, a networking and telecommunications company. Mr. Martin holds an A.A. from Iowa Lakes College.

Michael O. McCarthy III has served as our Chief Legal and Administrative Officer since March 2010. From January 2008 to March 2010, Mr. McCarthy served as our Chief Legal Officer. From May 2003 to January 2008, Mr. McCarthy served as our Vice President and General Counsel. Prior to joining our Company, Mr. McCarthy served in various executive roles, including Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Support and Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Ciena Corporation, a communications equipment company. Prior to working at Ciena, Mr. McCarthy worked at MCI Communications Corporation and at the law firms of Hogan and Lovells and Baker & Mckenzie. Mr. McCarthy holds a B.A. in Mathematical Economics from Colgate University and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University’s School of Law.

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Kambiz Y. Hooshmand has been a member of our board of directors since December 2009 and has served as Chairman of our board of directors since October 2010. From March 2005 to May 2009, Mr. Hooshmand served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, a communications solutions company. From March 2000 to February 2002, Mr. Hooshmand served as Vice President and Division General Manager of the DSL Business Unit of Cisco. From February 2002 to March 2005, Mr. Hooshmand also served as Group Vice President and General Manager of Cisco. From June 1997 to February 2000, Mr. Hooshmand served as Cisco’s Vice President of Engineering. From January 1992 to June 1997, Mr. Hooshmand served as Director of Engineering of StrataCom,Inc., a networking solutions company. Mr. Hooshmand holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from California State University, Chico and an M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University.

Kenneth A. Goldman has been a member of our board of directors since February 2005. Mr. Goldman has been the Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration, and Chief Financial Officer of Fortinet Inc., a provider of unified threat management solutions, since September 2007. From November 2006 to August 2007, Mr. Goldman served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Dexterra, Inc. From August 2000 until March 2006, Mr. Goldman served as Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration, and Chief Financial Officer of Siebel Systems, Inc., a supplier of customer software solutions and services. From December 1999 to December 2003, Mr. Goldman served as an advisory council member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board Advisory Council. Mr. Goldman serves on the board of directors of NXP Semiconductor N.V., a mixed signal and standards product semiconductor company. Mr. Goldman is currently on the board of trustees of Cornell University and was formerly a member of the Treasury Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession, a public committee that made recommendations in September 2008 to encourage a more sustainable auditing profession. Mr. Goldman holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Philip J. Koen has been a member of our board of directors since February 2010. Mr. Koen has been Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Intermedia.net, Inc., a cloud-based provider of hosted Microsoft Exchange, collaboration and content management services since June 2011. From February 2010 to May 2011, Mr. Koen served as the Chief Executive Officer of Montero Partners, an advisory services company. From March 2006 to January 2010, Mr. Koen served as Chief Executive Officer and Director of SAVVIS, Inc., a cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions provider. From July 1999 until February 2006, Mr. Koen was employed by Equinix, Inc., a provider of network neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, as President and Chief Operating Officer and as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Koen is currently on the board of trustees of Webster University. Mr. Koen holds a B.A. in Economics from Claremont McKenna College and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Dan Maydan, Ph.D. has been a member of our board of directors since September 2001. From December 1993 to April 2003, Dr. Maydan served as President of Applied Materials Inc., a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company, and was appointed President Emeritus of Applied Materials in April 2003. Dr. Maydan was a member of the board of directors of Applied Materials from June 1992 until March 2006. Dr. Maydan serves on the board of directors of Electronics for Imaging, Inc., a digital imaging and print management solutions company. Dr. Maydan is currently on the board of trustees of The Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Dr. Maydan holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Israel Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Physics from Edinburgh University of Scotland.

Paul J. Milbury has been a member of our board of directors since July 2010. Mr. Milbury served as Vice President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer of Starent Networks Corp., a provider of mobile network solutions, from January 2007 until its acquisition by Cisco in 2009. From December 2009 to July 2010, he played a key role in integrating Starent Networks into Cisco to create the Mobile

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Internet Technology Group. From December 2000 to March 2007, Mr. Milbury served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Avid Technology, Inc., a digital media creation, management, and distribution solutions company. Mr. Milbury holds a B.B.A. in Business and Economics and an M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Carl Redfield has been a member of our board of directors since August 2006. From September 2004 to his retirement in May 2008, Mr. Redfield served as Senior Vice President, New England executive sponsor, of Cisco. From February 1997 through September 2004, Mr. Redfield served as Cisco’s Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and Logistics. Mr. Redfield holds a B.S. in Materials Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and has completed post-graduate studies at the Harvard Business School.

Mark A. Wegleitner has been a member of our board of directors since May 2011. From September 2007 until his retirement in July 2010, Mr. Wegleitner served as the Senior Vice President, Technology, for Verizon Communications Inc., a telecommunications company, where his responsibilities included technology assessment, network architecture, platform development and laboratory testing for wireline and wireless communications networks. From July 2000 to September 2007, he served as Chief Technology Officer for Verizon, with responsibility for wireline communications technologies. Prior to the creation of Verizon, Mr. Wegleitner held various positions in the Network Services division of Bell Atlantic, a telecommunications company, including Chief Technology Officer from January 1999 to July 2000. Prior to joining Bell Atlantic, he worked at Bell Laboratories and AT&T General Departments. Mr. Wegleitner holds a B.A. in Mathematics from St. John’s University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Our board of directors is currently composed of nine members. Messrs. Goldman, Hooshmand, Koen, Milbury, Redfield and Wegleitner and Dr. Maydan qualify as independent directors in accordance with the listing requirements of NASDAQ Global Select Market (“NASDAQ”). The NASDAQ definition of independence includes a series of objective tests, such as that the director is not, and has not been for at least three years, one of our employees and that neither the director, nor any of his family members, has engaged in various types of business dealings with us. In addition, as further required by the NASDAQ rules, our board of directors has made a subjective determination as to each independent director that no relationships exist that, in the opinion of our board of directors, would interfere with his exercise of independent judgment in carrying out the responsibilities of a director. In making these determinations, our directors reviewed and discussed information provided by the directors and us with regard to each director’s business and personal activities as they may relate to us and our management.

Available Information

Our website address is http://www.infinera.com. Information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K unless expressly noted. We file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which we make available on our website free of charge. These reports include Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to such reports, each of which is provided on our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such materials with or furnish them to the SEC. You can also read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20549. You can obtain additional information about the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. In addition, the SEC maintains a website (http://www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC, including us.

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Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Set forth below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and in other documents we file with the SEC, are risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the results contemplated by the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Because of the following factors, as well as other variables affecting our operating results, past financial performance should not be considered as a reliable indicator of future performance and investors should not use historical trends to anticipate results or trends in future periods.

We have a history of significant operating losses and may not achieve profitability on an annual basis in the future.

For the fiscal years ended December 31, 2011 and December 25, 2010, we recorded net losses of $81.7 million and $27.9 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2011, our accumulated deficit was $487.0 million. We expect to continue to make significant expenditures related to the continued development of our business. These expenditures may include the addition of personnel related to the sales, marketing and research and development of our products and other costs related to the maintenance and expansion of our manufacturing facilities and research and development operations. We may therefore sustain significant operating losses and negative cash flows in the future. We will have to maintain significant increased revenue and product gross margins to achieve profitability on an annual basis.

Our revenue and operating results may fluctuate significantly, which could make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below investor or analyst expectations.

Our revenue and operating results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. Over the past four fiscal quarters, our revenue has ranged from $92.9 million to $112.0 million and our operating loss has ranged from $16.0 million to $24.1 million. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Our budgeted expense levels are based, in large part, on our expectations of long-term future revenue and the development efforts associated with these future revenues. As a result, fluctuations in our revenue and gross margins will have a significant impact on our operating results. Given the relatively fixed nature of our operating costs including those relating to our personnel and facilities, particularly for our engineering personnel, any substantial adjustment to our expenses to account for lower levels of revenue will be difficult and may take time. Consequently, if our revenue does not meet projected levels in the short-term, our inventory levels and operating expenses would be high relative to revenue, resulting in additional operating losses.

In addition to other risks discussed in this section, factors that may contribute to fluctuations in our revenue and our operating results include:

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Many factors affecting our results of operations are beyond our control and make it difficult to predict our results for a particular quarter or to accurately predict future revenues beyond a one-quarter time horizon. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts or below any guidance we may in the future provide to the market, the price of our common stock may decline substantially.

Our gross margins may fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter and may be adversely affected by a number of factors, some of which are beyond our control.

Our gross margins fluctuate from period-to-period and vary by customer and by product specification. Over the past four fiscal quarters, our gross margins have ranged from 39% to 46%. Our gross margins are likely to continue to fluctuate and will be affected by a number of factors, including:

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It is likely that the average unit prices of our products will decrease over time in response to competitive pricing pressures, increased negotiated sales discounts, new product introductions by us or our competitors or other factors. In addition, some of our customer contracts contain annual technology discounts that require us to decrease the sales price of our products to these customers. In response, we will need to reduce the cost of our products through manufacturing efficiencies, design improvements and cost reductions. If these efforts are not successful or if we are unable to reduce our costs to a greater extent than the reduction in the price of our products, our revenue and gross margin will decline, causing our operating results to decline. Fluctuations in gross margin may make it difficult to manage our business and achieve or maintain profitability.

Aggressive business tactics by our competitors may harm our business.

The markets in which we compete are extremely competitive and have resulted in aggressive business tactics by our competitors, including:

The level of competition and pricing pressure tend to increase during periods of economic weakness or during periods when there are fewer network build-out projects. If we fail to compete successfully against our current and future competitors, or if our current or future competitors continue or expand aggressive business tactics, including those described above, demand for our products could decline, we could experience delays or cancellations of customer orders, or we could be required to reduce our prices or increase our expenses.

Our ability to increase our revenue will depend upon continued growth of demand by consumers and businesses for additional network capacity.

Our future success depends on factors such as the continued growth of the Internet and IP traffic and the continuing adoption of high-capacity, revenue-generating services to increase the amount of data transmitted over communications networks and the growth of optical communications networks to meet the increased demand for bandwidth. If demand for such bandwidth does not continue, or slows down, the need for increased bandwidth across networks and the market for optical communications network products may not continue to grow. If this growth does not continue or slows down, our product sales would be negatively impacted. In addition, if general economic conditions weaken, our customers and potential customers may slow or delay their purchase decisions, which would have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

Any delays in the development and introduction of our products, and any future delays in releasing new products or in releasing enhancements to our existing products may harm our business.

Because our products are based on complex technology, including, in some cases, the development of next-generation PICs and specialized ASICs, we may experience unanticipated delays

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in developing, improving, manufacturing or deploying these products. The development process for our PICs is lengthy, and any modifications to our PICs, including the development of our next-generation PICs, entail significant development cost and risks.

At any given time, various new product introductions and enhancements to our existing products, such as future products based on our next-generation PICs, are in the development phase and are not yet ready for commercial manufacturing or deployment. Recently, we have increased our reliance on third parties, some of which are relatively early stage companies, to develop and manufacture components for our next-generation products, some of which require custom development. The maturing process from laboratory prototype to customer trials, and subsequently to general availability, involves a significant number of simultaneous development efforts. These efforts often must be completed in a timely manner so that they may be introduced into the product development cycle for our systems, and include:

Each of these steps, in turn, presents risks of failure, rework or delay, any one of which could decrease the speed and scope of product introduction and marketplace acceptance of our products. New generations of our PICs, specialized ASICs and intensive software testing and validation are important to the timely introduction of new products, enhancements to our existing products and our entrance into new markets. In addition, unexpected intellectual property disputes, failure of critical design elements, and a host of other execution risks may delay, or even prevent, the introduction of new products or enhancements to our existing products. If we do not develop and successfully introduce or enhance products in a timely manner, our competitive position will suffer. In addition, if we do not develop and successfully introduce or enhance products in sufficient time so as to satisfy our customer’s expectations, we may lose future business from such customers and harm our reputation and our customer relationships, either of which would harm our business and operating results.

The introduction of our DTN-X platform may adversely impact the timing of our revenues, our results of operations and our margins.

We are planning to introduce the new DTN-X platform in 2012. Among the risks associated with the introduction of new products, such as the DTN-X, are delays in development or manufacturing, variations in costs, delays in customer purchases or reductions in price of our existing DTN platform in anticipation of this new introductions, difficulty in predicting customer demand for this new platform and effectively managing inventory levels so that they are in line with anticipated demand, risks associated with customer qualification and evaluation of the DTN-X and the risk that this new platform may have reliability, quality or other defects.

As we introduce new products, such as the DTN and DTN-X platforms, with some overlapping feature sets, we face the risk that customers may forego purchases of one product in favor of another product with similar, but greater, functionality. As we introduce our DTN-X platform in 2012, a portion of our DTN platform revenues will be impacted by this new product as some of our customers and prospects will choose to purchase the DTN-X platform in place of the DTN platform. Because the

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DTN-X platform is a new product for which customers may require additional testing requirements prior to acceptance, initial revenue recognition for the DTN-X platform may take longer than for sales of the DTN platform. Any delay in the revenue recognition may adversely impact our quarterly revenue results. In addition, if we are required to write off or write down a significant amount of inventory, our results of operations for the period would be adversely affected.

In addition, we may be required to recognize costs and expenses for our DTN-X platform before we can recognize the related revenue. New products are less profitable due to higher research and development expenses. Accordingly, until we can ramp up the manufacture of our DTN-X platform, our margins related to the initial sales of the DTN-X platform will be negatively impacted. Such uncertainty related to the introduction and market acceptance of our DTN-X platform could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results and prospects.

The markets in which we compete are highly competitive and dominated by large corporations, and we may not be able to compete effectively.

Competition in the optical networking equipment market is intense, and we expect such competition to increase. A number of very large companies have historically dominated the optical communications network equipment industry. Our competitors include current wavelength division multiplexing suppliers, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena Corporation, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Fujitsu Limited, Huawei Technologies Co., NEC Corporation, Nokia-Siemens Networks, Tellabs and ZTE Corporation. Competition in these markets is based on price, commercial terms, functionality, manufacturing capability, pre-existing installation, services, existing business and customer relationships, scalability and the ability of products and breadth and quality of services to meet our customers’ immediate and future network requirements. Other companies have, or may in the future develop, products that are or could be competitive with our products. In particular, if a competitor develops a photonic integrated circuit with similar functionality to our PICs, our business could be harmed. Recent mergers from our competitors and any future acquisitions or combinations between or among our competitors may adversely affect our competitive position by strengthening our competitors.

Many of our competitors have substantially greater name recognition and technical, financial and marketing resources, greater manufacturing capacity and better established relationships with incumbent carriers and other potential customers than we have. Many of our competitors have more resources to develop or acquire, and more experience in developing or acquiring, new products and technologies and in creating market awareness for those products and technologies. In addition, many of our competitors have the financial resources to offer competitive products at aggressive pricing levels that could prevent us from competing effectively. Further, many of our competitors have built long-standing relationships with some of our prospective customers and have the ability to provide financing to customers and could, therefore, have an inherent advantage in selling products to those customers.

We compete with low-cost producers from China that can increase pricing pressure on us and a number of smaller companies that provide competition for a specific product, customer segment or geographic market. These competitors often base their products on the latest available technologies. Due to the narrower focus of their efforts, these competitors may achieve commercial availability of their products more quickly than we can and may provide attractive alternatives to our customers.

Our large customers have substantial negotiating leverage, which may require that we agree to terms and conditions that result in increased cost of sales, decreased revenue and lower average selling prices and gross margins, all of which would harm our operating results.

Substantial changes in the optical networking industry have occurred over the last few years. Many potential customers have confronted static or declining revenue. Many of our customers have substantial debt burdens, many have experienced financial distress, and some that have gone out of

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business have been acquired by other service providers or announced their withdrawal from segments of the business. Consolidation in the markets in which we compete has resulted in changes in the structure of the communications networking industry, with greater concentration of purchasing power in a small number of large service providers, cable operators, internet content providers and government agencies. For example, in October 2011, Level 3 announced that it had completed its acquisition of Global Crossing. This transaction and resulting combined purchasing power may negatively impact the revenue we receive from the combined entity in the future. The increased concentration among our customer base may also lead to increased competition for new network deployments and increased negotiating power for our customers. This may require us to decrease our average selling prices which would have an adverse impact on our operating results.

Further, many of our customers are large communications service providers that have substantial purchasing power and leverage in negotiating contractual arrangements with us. Our customers have and may continue to seek advantageous pricing, payment and other commercial terms and may require us to develop additional features in the products we sell to them. If we are required to develop additional features for our product for a customer, we may be required to defer some of our revenue for such a customer until we have developed and delivered such additional features. We have and may continue to be required to agree to unfavorable commercial terms with these customers, including reducing the average selling price of our products or agreeing to extended payment terms in response to these commercial requirements or competitive pricing pressures. To maintain acceptable operating results, we will need to comply with these commercial terms, develop and introduce new products and product enhancements on a timely basis and continue to reduce our costs.

We expect the factors described above to continue to affect our business and operating results for an indeterminate period, in several ways, including:

If we are unable to offset any reductions in our average selling prices with increased sales volumes and reduced production costs, or if we fail to develop and introduce new products and enhancements on a timely basis, or if we disagree on our interpretation and compliance with the commercial terms of our customer agreements, our relationships with our customers and our operating results would be harmed.

We must respond to rapid technological change and comply with evolving industry standards and requirements for our products to be successful.

The optical networking equipment market is characterized by rapid technological change, changes in customer requirements and evolving industry standards. We continually invest in research and development to sustain or enhance our existing products, but the introduction of new communications technologies and the emergence of new industry standards or requirements could render our products obsolete. Further, in developing our products, we have made, and will continue to make, assumptions with respect to which standards or requirements will be adopted by our customers and competitors. If

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the standards or requirements adopted by our prospective customers are different from those on which we have focused our efforts, market acceptance of our products would be reduced or delayed and our business would be harmed.

We are continuing to invest a significant portion of our research and development efforts in the development of our next-generation products. We expect our competitors to continue to improve the performance of their existing products and to introduce new products and technologies and to influence customers’ buying criteria so as to emphasize product capabilities that we do not, or may not, possess. To be competitive, we must properly anticipate future customer requirements and we must continue to invest significant resources in research and development, sales and marketing and customer support. If we do not anticipate these future customer requirements and invest in the technologies necessary to enable us to have and to sell the appropriate solutions, it may limit our competitive position and future sales, which would have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition. We may not have sufficient resources to make these investments and we may not be able to make the technological advances necessary to be competitive.

We are dependent on sole source and limited source suppliers for several key components, and if we fail to obtain these components on a timely basis, we will not meet our customers’ product delivery requirements.

We currently purchase several key components for our products from single or limited sources. In particular, we rely on our own production of certain components of our products, such as PICs, and on third parties as sole source suppliers for certain of the components of our products, including ASICs, field-programmable gate arrays, processors, and other semiconductor and optical components. We purchase these items on a purchase order basis and have no long-term contracts with many of these sole source suppliers. Recently, we have increased our reliance on third parties to develop and manufacture components for our next-generation (40 Gbps and 100 Gbps) products, some of which require custom development. For example, for the 40 Gbps application of our DTN platform, we purchase customized discrete components. If any of our sole or limited source suppliers suffer from capacity constraints, lower than expected yields, deployment delays, work stoppages or any other reduction or disruption in output, they may be unable to meet our delivery schedule which could result in lost revenue, additional product costs and deployment delays that could harm our business and customer relationships. Further, our suppliers could enter into exclusive arrangements with our competitors, refuse to sell their products or components to us at commercially reasonable prices or at all, go out of business or discontinue their relationships with us. We may be unable to develop alternative sources for these components.

The loss of a source of supply, or lack of sufficient availability of key components, could require us to redesign products that use such components, which could result in lost revenue, additional product costs and deployment delays that could harm our business and customer relationships. If we do not receive critical components for our products in a timely manner, we will be unable to deliver those components to our contract manufacturer in a timely manner and would, therefore, be unable to meet our prospective customers’ product delivery requirements. In addition, the sourcing from new suppliers may require us to re-design our products, which could cause delays in the manufacturing and delivery of our products. In the past, we have experienced delivery delays because of lack of availability of components or reliability issues with components that we were purchasing. In addition, some of our suppliers have gone out of business, limited their supply of components to us, or indicated that they may be going out of business. Historically, we have seen a tightening of supply with a number of our suppliers and we have experienced longer than normal lead times and supply delays. We may in the future experience a shortage of certain components as a result of our own manufacturing issues, manufacturing issues at our suppliers or contract manufacturers, capacity problem experiences by our suppliers or contract manufacturers, or strong demand in the industry for such components. A return to

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growth in the economy is likely to continue to create pressure on us and our suppliers to accurately project overall component demand and manufacturing capacity. These supplier disruptions may continue to occur in the future, which could limit our ability to produce our products and cause us to fail to meet a customer’s delivery requirements. Such events could harm our reputation and our customer relationships, either of which would harm our business and operating results.

If we fail to accurately forecast demand for our products, we may have excess or insufficient inventory, which may increase our operating costs, decrease our revenue and harm our business.

We are required to generate forecasts of future demands for our products several months prior to the scheduled delivery to our prospective customers, which requires us to make significant investments before we know if corresponding revenue will be recognized. Lead times for materials and components, including ASICs, that we need to order for the manufacture of our products vary significantly and depend on factors such as the specific supplier, contract terms and demand for each component at a given time. In the past, we have experienced lengthening in lead times for certain components. If the lead times for components are lengthened, we may be required to purchase increased levels of such components to satisfy our delivery commitments to our customers.

If we overestimate demand for our products or particular elements of our products and increase our inventory in anticipation of customer orders that do not materialize, we will have excess inventory, we will face a risk of obsolescence and significant inventory write-downs and our fixed costs will be spread across fewer units raising our per unit costs. If we underestimate demand for our products, we will have inadequate inventory, which could slow down or interrupt the manufacturing of our products and result in delays in shipments and our ability to recognize revenue. If actual market conditions are less favorable than our internal projections, additional inventory write-offs may be required. In addition, we may be unable to meet our supply commitments to customers which could result in a breach of our customer agreements and require us to pay damages.

If our contract manufacturers do not perform as we expect, our business may be harmed.

We rely on third-party contract manufacturers to perform a significant portion of the manufacturing of our products, and our future success will depend on our ability to have sufficient volumes of our products manufactured in a cost-effective and quality-controlled manner. We have engaged third parties to manufacture certain elements of our products at multiple contract manufacturing sites located around the world but do not have long-term agreements in place with some of our manufacturers and suppliers. There are a number of risks associated with our dependence on contract manufacturers, including:

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Any of these risks could impair our ability to fulfill orders. Our contract manufacturers may not be able to meet the delivery requirements of our customers, which could decrease customer satisfaction and harm our product sales. We do not have long-term contracts or arrangements with our contract manufacturers that will guarantee product availability, or the continuation of particular pricing or payment terms. If our contract manufacturers are unable or unwilling to continue manufacturing our products or components of our products in required volumes or our relationship with any of our contract manufacturers is discontinued for any reason, we would be required to identify and qualify alternative manufacturers, which could cause us to be unable to meet our supply requirements to our customers and result in the breach of our customer agreements. Qualifying a new contract manufacturer and commencing volume production is expensive and time-consuming and if we are required to change or qualify a new contract manufacturer, we would likely lose sales revenue and damage our existing customer relationships.

We are dependent on a small number of key customers for a significant portion of our revenue and the loss of, or a significant reduction in, orders from one or more of our key customers would reduce our revenue and harm our operating results.

A relatively small number of customers account for a large percentage of our net revenue. As a result, our business will be harmed if any of our key customers do not generate as much revenue as we forecast, stop purchasing from us, or substantially reduce their orders to us. In addition, our business will be harmed if we fail to maintain our competitive advantage with our key customers.

Our ability to continue to generate revenue from our key customers will depend on our ability to maintain strong relationships with these customers and introduce new products that are desirable to these customers at competitive prices, and we may not be successful at doing so. Because, in most cases, our sales are made to these customers pursuant to standard purchase agreements rather than long-term purchase commitments, orders may be cancelled or reduced readily. In the event of a cancellation or reduction of an order, we may not have enough time to reduce operating expenses to minimize the effect of the lost revenue on our business. Our operating results will continue to depend on our ability to sell our products to our key customers.

We are dependent on a single product, and the lack of continued market acceptance of our DTN platform would harm our business.

Although we added the ATN platform as part of our product offering in 2009, and expect that the DTN-X product will generate revenue in 2012, our DTN platform accounts for substantially all of our revenue and will continue to account for a significant majority of our business for the foreseeable future. As a result, our business could be harmed by:

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If we fail to expand sales of our products into international markets or to sell our products to new types of customers, such as U.S. regional Bell operating companies and international postal, telephone and telegraph companies, our revenue will be harmed.

We believe that, in order to grow our revenue and business and to build a large and diverse customer base, we must successfully sell our products in international markets and to new types of customers, such as U.S. regional Bell operating companies and international postal, telephone and telegraph companies. We have limited experience selling our products internationally and to U.S. regional Bell operating companies and international postal, telephone and telegraph companies. Sales cycles for these customers are often very lengthy and competition for these customers is intense. To succeed in these sales efforts, we believe we must hire additional sales personnel to develop our relationships with these potential customers and develop and manage new sales channels through resellers, distributors and systems integrators. If we do not succeed in our efforts to sell to these customers, the size of our total addressable market will be limited. This, in turn, would harm our ability to grow our customer base and revenue.

If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights, our competitive position could be harmed or we could incur significant expense to enforce our rights.

We depend on our ability to protect our proprietary technology. We rely on a combination of methods to protect our intellectual property, including limiting access to certain information, and utilizing trade secret, patent, copyright and trademark laws and confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties, all of which offer only limited protection. The steps we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may be inadequate to preclude misappropriation or unauthorized disclosure of our proprietary information or infringement of our intellectual property rights, and our ability to police such misappropriation, unauthorized disclosure or infringement is uncertain, particularly in countries outside of the United States. This is likely to become an increasingly important issue as we expand our operations and product development into countries that provide a lower level of intellectual property protection. We do not know whether any of our pending patent applications will result in the issuance of patents or whether the examination process will require us to narrow our claims, and even if patents are issued, they may be contested, circumvented or invalidated. Moreover, the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with a competitive advantage, and, as with any technology, competitors may be able to develop similar or superior technologies to our own now or in the future.

Protecting against the unauthorized use of our products, trademarks and other proprietary rights is expensive, difficult, time consuming and, in some cases, impossible. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets or to determine the validity or scope of the proprietary rights of others. Such litigation could result in substantial cost and diversion of management resources, either of which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results. Furthermore, many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights than we do. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property.

Claims by others that we infringe their intellectual property could harm our business.

Our industry is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents and frequent claims and related litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. In particular, many leading companies in the optical networking industry, including our competitors, have extensive patent portfolios with respect to optical networking technology. We expect that infringement claims may increase as the number of products and competitors in our market increases and overlaps occur. From time to time, third

parties may assert exclusive patent, copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights to technologies and related standards that are important to our business or seek to invalidate the proprietary

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rights that we hold. Competitors or other third parties have, and may continue to assert claims or initiate litigation or other proceedings against us or our manufacturers, suppliers or customers alleging infringement of their proprietary rights, or seeking to invalidate our proprietary rights, with respect to our products and technology. In the event that we are unsuccessful in defending against any such claims, or any resulting lawsuit or proceedings, we could incur liability for damages and/or have valuable proprietary rights invalidated.

Any claim of infringement from a third party, even one without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim, and could distract our management from running our business. Furthermore, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages. A judgment could also include an injunction or other court order that could prevent us from offering our products. In addition, we might be required to seek a license for the use of such intellectual property, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Alternatively, we may be required to develop non-infringing technology, which would require significant effort and expense and may ultimately not be successful. Any of these events could harm our business, financial condition and operating results. Competitors and other third parties have and may continue to assert infringement claims against our customers and sales partners. Any of these claims would require us to initiate or defend potentially protracted and costly litigation on their behalf, regardless of the merits of these claims, because we generally indemnify our customers and sales partners from claims of infringement of proprietary rights of third parties. If any of these claims succeed, we may be forced to pay damages on behalf of our customers or sales partners, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We incorporate open source software into our products. Although we monitor our use of open source software closely, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our products. In such event, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our products, to re-engineer our products or to discontinue the sale of our products in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis, any of which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

We are currently involved in litigation with Cheetah and Level 3 whereby Cheetah alleges that Infinera and Level 3 infringe on two Cheetah patents. In addition, Cambrian Science has filed suit against us and seven of our customers alleging that the use of our DTN platform by our customers infringes upon a Cambrian Science patent. Information regarding these matters is set forth in Part II, Item 3. “Legal Proceedings” and is incorporated herein by reference. We believe these lawsuits are without merit and intend to defend ourselves vigorously, but are unable to predict the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome. In the event that Cheetah or Cambrian Science is successful in obtaining a judgment requiring us to pay damages, obtaining a judgment requiring us to indemnify our customers for damages imposed upon them, or obtaining an injunction preventing the sale of our products, our business and operating results could be harmed.

Our manufacturing process is very complex and the partial or complete loss of our manufacturing facility, or a reduction in yields or an inability to scale capacity to meet customer demands could harm our business.

The manufacturing process for certain components of our products, including our PICs, is technically challenging. In the event that any of these manufacturing facilities were fully or partially destroyed, as a result of fire, water damage, or otherwise, it would limit our ability to produce our products. Because of the complex nature of our manufacturing facilities, such loss would take a considerable amount of time to repair or rebuild. The partial or complete loss of any of our manufacturing facilities, or an event causing the interruption in our use of such facility for any extended period of time would cause our business, financial condition and operating results to be harmed.

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Minor deviations in the PIC manufacturing process can cause substantial decreases in yields and, in some cases, cause production to be suspended. In the past, we have had significant variances in our PIC yields, including production interruptions and suspensions and may have continued yield variances, including additional interruptions or suspensions in the future. We expect our manufacturing yield for our next-generation PICs to be lower initially and increase as we achieve full production. Poor yields from our PIC manufacturing process or defects, integration issues or other performance problems in our products could limit our ability to satisfy customer demand requirements, and could cause us customer relations and business reputation problems, harming our business and operating results.

Although we are currently in the process of expanding our manufacturing facilities, our manufacturing facilities may not have adequate capacity to meet the demand for our products or we may not be able to increase our capacity to meet potential increases in demand for our products. Our inability to obtain sufficient manufacturing capacity to meet demand, either in our own facilities or through foundry or similar arrangements with third parties, could harm our relationships with customers, our business and our operating results.

Unfavorable macroeconomic and market conditions may adversely affect our industry, business and gross margins.

Our business depends on the overall demand for additional bandwidth capacity and on the economic health and willingness of our customers and potential customers to make capital commitments to purchase our products and services. As a result of macroeconomic or market uncertainty, we may face new risks that we have not yet identified. In addition, a number of the risks associated with our business, which are disclosed in these risk factors, may increase in likelihood, magnitude or duration.

In the past, unfavorable macroeconomic and market conditions have resulted in sustained periods of decreased demand for optical communications products. These conditions may also result in the tightening of credit markets, which may limit or delay our customers’ ability to obtain necessary financing for their purchases of our products. A lack of liquidity in the capital markets or the continued uncertainty in the global economic environment may cause our customers to delay or cancel their purchases, increase the time they take to pay or default on their payment obligations, each of which would negatively affect our business and operating results. Continued weakness and uncertainty in the global economy could cause some of our customers to become illiquid, delay payments or adversely affect our collection of their accounts, which could result in a higher level of bad debt expense. In addition, currency fluctuations could negatively affect our international customers’ ability or desire to purchase our products.

Challenging economic conditions have from time to time contributed to slowdowns in the telecommunications industry in which we operate. Such slowdowns may result in:

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A lack of liquidity and economic uncertainty may adversely affect our suppliers or the terms on which we purchase products from these suppliers. It may also cause some of our suppliers to become illiquid. Any of these impacts could limit our ability to obtain components for our products from these suppliers and could adversely impact our supply chain or the delivery schedule to our customers. This also could require us to purchase more expensive components, or re-design our products, which could cause increases in the cost of our products and delays in the manufacturing and delivery of our products. Such events could harm our gross margins and harm our reputation and our customer relationships, either of which could harm our business and operating results.

Product performance problems, including undetected errors in our hardware or software, or deployment delays could harm our business and reputation.

The development and production of new products with high technology content is complicated and often involves problems with software, components and manufacturing methods. Complex hardware and software systems, such as our products, can often contain undetected errors when first introduced or as new versions are released. In addition, errors associated with components we purchase from third parties, including customized components, may be difficult to resolve. We have experienced errors in the past in connection with our DTN platform, including failures due to the receipt of faulty components from our suppliers. We suspect that errors, including potentially serious errors, will be found from time to time in our products. Our products may suffer degradation of performance and reliability over time.

If reliability, quality or network monitoring problems develop, a number of negative effects on our business could result, including:

Because we outsource the manufacturing of certain components of our products, we may also be subject to product performance problems as a result of the acts or omissions of third parties.

From time to time, we encounter interruptions or delays in the activation of our products at a customer’s site. These interruptions or delays may result from product performance problems or from issues with installation and activation, some of which are outside our control. If we experience significant interruptions or delays that we cannot promptly resolve, the associated revenue for these installations may be delayed or confidence in our products could be undermined, which could cause us to lose customers and fail to add new customers.

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If we lose key personnel or fail to attract and retain additional qualified personnel when needed, our business may be harmed.

Our success depends to a significant degree upon the continued contributions of our key management, engineering, sales and marketing, and finance personnel, many of whom would be difficult to replace. For example, senior members of our engineering team have unique technical experience that would be difficult to replace. We do not have long-term employment contracts or key person life insurance covering any of our key personnel. Because our products are complex, we must hire and retain a large number of highly trained customer service and support personnel to ensure that the deployment of our products do not result in network disruption for our customers. We believe our future success will depend in large part upon our ability to identify, attract and retain highly skilled managerial, engineering, sales, marketing, finance and customer service and support personnel. Competition for these individuals is intense in our industry, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where we are headquartered. We may not succeed in identifying, attracting and retaining appropriate personnel. The loss of the services of any of our key personnel, the inability to identify, attract or retain qualified personnel in the future or delays in hiring qualified personnel, particularly engineers and sales personnel, could make it difficult for us to manage our business and meet key objectives, such as timely product introductions.

Our sales cycle can be long and unpredictable, which could result in an unexpected revenue shortfall in any given quarter.

Our products have a lengthy sales cycle, which can extend from six to twelve months and may take even longer for larger prospective customers such as U.S. regional Bell operating companies, international postal, telephone and telegraph companies and U.S. competitive local exchange carriers. Our prospective customers conduct significant evaluation, testing, implementation and acceptance procedures before they purchase our products. We incur substantial sales and marketing expenses and expend significant management effort during this time, regardless of whether we make a sale.

Because the purchase of our equipment involves substantial cost, most of our customers wait to purchase our equipment until they are ready to deploy it in their network. As a result, it is difficult for us to accurately predict the timing of future purchases by our customers. In addition, product purchases are often subject to budget constraints, multiple approvals and unplanned administrative processing and other delays. If sales expected from customers for a particular quarter are not realized in that quarter or at all, our revenue will be negatively impacted.

Our international sales and operations subject us to additional risks that may harm our operating results.

We market, sell and service our products globally. In 2011, 2010 and 2009, we derived approximately 30%, 25% and 31%, respectively, of our revenue from customers outside of the United States. We have sales and support personnel in numerous countries worldwide. In addition, we have a large group of development personnel located in Bangalore, India; Beijing, China; and Kanata, Canada. We expect that significant management attention and financial resources will be required for our international activities over the foreseeable future as we continue to expand our international presence. In some countries, our successes in selling our products will depend in part on our ability to form relationships with local partners. Our inability to identify appropriate partners or reach mutually satisfactory arrangements for international sales of our products could impact our ability to maintain or increase international market demand for our products.

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Our international operations are subject to inherent risks, and our future results could be adversely affected by a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, including:

International customers may also require that we comply with certain testing or customization of our products to conform to local standards. The product development costs to test or customize our products could be extensive and a material expense for us.

As we continue to expand our business globally, our success will depend, in large part, on our ability to anticipate and effectively manage these and other risks associated with our international operations. Our failure to manage any of these risks could harm our international operations and reduce our international sales.

We may be adversely affected by fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

A portion of our sales are to countries outside of the United States, and are in currencies other than U.S. dollars, particularly the Euro. Accordingly, fluctuations in foreign currency rates, most notably the strengthening of the dollar against the Euro, could have a material impact on our revenue in future periods. We enter into foreign currency exchange forward contracts to reduce the impact of foreign currency fluctuations on accounts receivable denominated in Euro. These hedging programs reduce the impact of currency exchange rate movements on certain transactions, but do not cover all foreign-denominated transactions and therefore do not entirely eliminate the impact of fluctuations in exchange rates which could negatively affect our results of operations and financial condition.

If we fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting in the future, the accuracy and timing of our financial reporting may be adversely affected.

We are required to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The provisions of the act require, among other things, that we maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. Preparing our financial statements involves a number of complex processes, many of which are done manually and are dependent upon individual data input or review. These processes include, but are not limited to, calculating revenue, deferred revenue and inventory costs. While we continue to automate our processes and enhance our review and put in place controls to reduce the likelihood for errors, we expect that for the foreseeable future, many of our processes will remain manually intensive and thus subject to human error.

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Any acquisitions we make could disrupt our business and harm our financial condition and operations.

We have made strategic acquisitions of businesses, technologies and other assets in the past. While we have no current agreements or commitments, we may in the future acquire businesses, product lines or technologies. In the event of any future acquisitions, we may not ultimately strengthen our competitive position or achieve our goals, or they may be viewed negatively by customers, financial markets or investors and we could:

Acquisitions also involve numerous risks, including:

We may not be able to successfully integrate any businesses, products, technologies or personnel that we might acquire in the future. Our failure to do so could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our use and reliance upon development resources in India, China and Canada may expose us to unanticipated costs or liabilities.

We have established development centers in India, China and Canada and expect to continue to increase hiring of personnel for these facilities. There is no assurance that our reliance upon development resources in India, China or Canada will enable us to achieve meaningful cost reductions or greater resource efficiency. Further, our development efforts and other operations in these countries involve significant risks, including:

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Difficulties resulting from the factors above and other risks related to our operations in these countries could expose us to increased expense, impair our development efforts, harm our competitive position and damage our reputation.

Unforeseen health, safety and environmental costs could harm our business.

Our manufacturing operations use substances that are regulated by various federal, state and international laws governing health, safety and the environment, including the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulations adopted by the European Union. If we experience a problem with these substances, it could cause an interruption or delay in our manufacturing operations or could cause us to incur liabilities for any costs related to health, safety or environmental remediation. We could also be subject to liability if we do not handle these substances in compliance with safety standards for storage and transportation and applicable laws. If we experience a problem or fail to comply with such safety standards, our business, financial condition and operating results may be harmed.

We are subject to governmental import and export controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in international markets.

We are subject to export control laws that limit which products we sell and where and to whom we sell our products. U.S. export control laws also limit our ability to conduct product development activities in certain countries. In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain technologies and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our products or could limit our customers’ ability to implement our products in those countries. Changes in our products or changes in import and export regulations may create delays in the introduction of our products in international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our products throughout their global systems or, in some cases, prevent the import and export of our products to certain countries altogether. Any change in import and export regulations or related legislation, shift in approach to the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our products by, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our products to, existing or potential customers with international operations. Failure to comply with these and similar laws on a timely basis, or at all, decreased use of our products or any limitation on our ability to export or sell our products would adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

If we need additional capital in the future, it may not be available to us on favorable terms, or at all.

Our business requires significant capital. We have historically relied on significant outside debt and equity financing as well as cash flow from operations to fund our operations, capital expenditures and expansion. We may require additional capital from equity or debt financings in the future to fund our operations or respond to competitive pressures or strategic opportunities. We have a history of significant operating losses. For 2011, we had a net loss of $81.7 million. In the event that we require additional capital, we may not be able to secure timely additional financing on favorable terms, or at all. The terms of any additional financing may place limits on our financial and operating flexibility. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity, convertible debt securities or other securities convertible into equity, our existing stockholders could suffer dilution in their percentage ownership of our company, and any new securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, if and when we require it, our ability to grow or support our business and to respond to business challenges could be limited and our business will be harmed.

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We are subject to government regulations that could adversely impact our business.

The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, has jurisdiction over the entire U.S. communications industry and, as a result, our products and our U.S. customers are subject to FCC rules and regulations. Current and future FCC regulations affecting communications services, our products or our customers’ businesses could negatively affect our business. In addition, international regulatory standards could impair our ability to develop products for international customers in the future. Moreover, many jurisdictions are evaluating or implementing regulations relating to cyber security, privacy and data protection, which can affect the market and requirements for networking and communications equipment. Delays caused by our compliance with regulatory requirements could result in postponements or cancellations of product orders. Further, we may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining any regulatory approvals that may, in the future, be required to operate our business. Any failure to obtain such approvals could harm our business and operating results.

Natural disasters, terrorist attacks or other catastrophic events could harm our operations.

Our headquarters and the majority of our infrastructure, including our PIC FAB manufacturing facility, are located in Northern California, an area that is susceptible to earthquakes and other natural disasters. Further, a terrorist attack aimed at Northern California or at our nation’s energy or telecommunications infrastructure could hinder or delay the development and sale of our products. In the event that an earthquake, terrorist attack or other catastrophe were to destroy any part of our facilities, or certain of our contract manufacturers’ facilities, destroy or disrupt vital infrastructure systems or interrupt our operations for any extended period of time, our business, financial condition and operating results would be harmed.

The trading price of our common stock has been volatile and is likely to be volatile in the future.

The trading prices of our common stock and the securities of other technology companies have been and may continue to be highly volatile. Further, our common stock has limited prior trading history. Factors affecting the trading price of our common stock include:

In addition, if the market for technology stocks or the stock market in general experiences loss of investor confidence, the trading price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, financial condition or operating results. The trading price of our common stock might also decline in reaction to events that affect other companies in our industry even if these events do not directly affect us. Each of these factors, among others, could harm the value of your investment in our

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common stock. Some companies that have had volatile market prices for their securities have had securities class action lawsuits filed against them. If a suit were filed against us, regardless of its merits or outcome, it could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention and resources.

Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and Delaware law could discourage delay or prevent a change in control of our company and may affect the trading price of our common stock.

We are a Delaware corporation and the anti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which apply to us, may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years after the person becomes an interested stockholder, even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may discourage, delay or prevent a change in our management or control over us that stockholders may consider favorable. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws:

Not applicable.

Our headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California. We lease facilities in North America and Asia. The following is a summary of the locations, functions and approximate square footage of those facilities as of December 31, 2011:

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The above leases expire between 2013 and 2021. We intend to add new facilities and to expand existing facilities as we add employees, and we believe that suitable additional or substitute space will be available as needed to accommodate any such expansion of our operations. We believe that our existing facilities are adequate to meet our business needs through the next 12 months.

Cheetah Patent Infringement Litigation

On May 9, 2006, we and Level 3 were sued by Cheetah in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Texarkana Division for alleged infringement of patent no. 6,795,605 (the “‘605 Patent”), and a continuation thereof. On May 16, 2006, Cheetah filed an amended complaint, which requested an order to enjoin the sale of our DTN platform and to recover all damages caused by the alleged willful infringement including any and all compensatory damages available by law, such as actual and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, associated interest and Cheetah’s costs incurred in the lawsuit. Cheetah’s complaint does not request a specific dollar amount for these compensatory damages. We are contractually obligated to indemnify Level 3 for damages suffered by Level 3 to the extent its product supplied by us is found to infringe, and we have assumed the defense of this matter. On July 20, 2006, we and Level 3 filed an amended response denying all infringement claims under the ‘605 Patent and asserting that the claims of the ‘605 Patent are invalid and that the DTN platform does not infringe the ‘605 Patent. On November 28, 2006, Cheetah filed a second amended complaint and added patent no. 7,142,347 (the “‘347 Patent”) to the lawsuit. On December 18, 2006, we and Level 3 filed responses to Cheetah’s second amended complaint denying all infringement claims under the ‘347 Patent and we and Level 3 asserted counterclaims against Cheetah asserting that the claims are invalid and that the DTN platform does not infringe the patents.

On January 30, 2007, Cheetah filed a third amended complaint adding additional assertions of infringement for the two patents in suit. On February 16, 2007, we and Level 3 filed responses to Cheetah’s third amended complaint denying all infringement claims, and we and Level 3 asserted counterclaims against Cheetah asserting that the claims of the patents are invalid and that the DTN platform does not infringe the patents.

On March 14, 2007, we submitted requests to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “U.S. PTO”) for inter partes reexamination of the ‘605 Patent and the ‘347 Patent asking the U.S. PTO to reexamine the patents based on prior art in order to invalidate the patents or limit the scope of each patent’s claims. On March 21, 2007, we and Level 3 filed a motion with the court to stay all proceedings in the lawsuit pending the reexamination of the ‘605 Patent and the ‘347 Patent.

On April 11, 2007, we, Level 3 and Cheetah filed a joint motion with the court, agreeing to the following: (1) to stay all proceedings in the lawsuit pending a determination by the U.S. PTO as to whether it will reexamine the ‘605 Patent and the ‘347 Patent; and (2) if the U.S. PTO decides to reexamine either the ‘605 Patent and the 347 Patent, to stay all proceedings in the lawsuit pending final resolution of the reexamination(s) by the U.S. PTO. On April 12, 2007, the court granted the motion staying all proceedings in the lawsuit. On June 26, 2007, the U.S. PTO also ordered reexamination of the ‘605 Patent. On August 1, 2007, the U.S. PTO ordered reexamination of the ‘347 Patent. As a result, all proceedings in this lawsuit are stayed until the final resolution of these reexaminations.

In a communication we received from the U.S. PTO dated December 4, 2009, we were advised that various claims in the ‘347 Patent reexamination have been allowed, while other claims have been rejected. In a communication we received from the U.S. PTO dated June 22, 2010, we were advised that various claims in the ‘605 Patent reexamination have been allowed, while other claims have been

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rejected. We have appealed the allowance of certain claims in the ‘347 Patent and ‘605 Patent reexaminations to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences at the U.S. PTO and will have an opportunity to appeal the allowance of certain claims in the ‘605 Patent reexamination. We do not know when the U.S. PTO reexamination process will be completed.

On January 26, 2010, Cheetah’s counsel filed a motion requesting the court to lift the stay in order to litigate those claims relating to the ‘347 Patent reexamination that the U.S. PTO allowed. The court denied the motion on April 16, 2010. On April 30, 2010, Cheetah filed a motion for reconsideration of the order denying Cheetah’s motion to lift the stay. On May 17, 2010, we filed our opposition to Cheetah’s motion for reconsideration. On August 24, 2010, after a hearing on the matter, the court issued an order keeping the stay in place. We believe the suit is without merit and intend to defend ourselves vigorously, but we are unable to predict the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome.

On March 30, 2011, Cheetah filed a motion re-urging the court to lift the stay, which we opposed on April 18, 2011. On May 12, 2011, the court issued an order denying Cheetah’s reurged motion to lift the stay. On May 24, 2011, Cheetah requested reconsideration of the court’s order, and we filed our opposition on June 16, 2011. Cheetah filed a reply to our opposition on June 23, 2011. Although we believe Cheetah’s re-urged motion should be denied, we cannot predict whether the court will grant it. In connection with the reexamination of the ‘605 Patent and the ‘347 Patent, we presented an oral argument before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“BPAI”) on September 21, 2011. We are awaiting a decision from the BPAI.

Based on the information available at this time, we concluded that the likelihood of a loss with respect to this suit is less than reasonably possible and therefore, a range of loss cannot be provided. As a result, we have made no provision for this lawsuit in our financial statements. Factors that we considered in the determination of the likelihood of a loss in respect to this matter included the merits of the case, the nature of the litigation (including the complex and technical nature of patent litigation), the length of time the matter has been pending, the status of the re-examination of the underlying patents at issue by the U.S. PTO, the status of the plaintiff as a non-operating entity, and the lack of any specific amount (or range of amounts) for the alleged damages sought in the complaint.

Cambrian Science Patent Infringement Litigation

On July 12, 2011, we were notified by Level 3 that Cambrian filed suit against Level 3 and six other defendants, including Cox Communications, Inc., XO Communications, LLC, Global Crossing Limited, 360Networks (USA), Inc., Integra Telecom, Inc. and IXC, Inc. dba Telekenex (collectively, the “Defendants”) in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging infringement of patent no. 6,775,312 (the “’312 Patent”) and requesting damages for such alleged infringement (the “Cambrian Claim”). The nature of the Cambrian Claim involves allegations of infringement of the ‘312 Patent resulting from the Defendants’ use of certain products and systems in the Defendants’ networks, including our DTN platform. On August 24, 2011, Cambrian amended the complaint to name the Company as a defendant. We assumed the defense of the Cambrian Claim and filed an answer to Cambrian’s complaint on September 21, 2011, in which we denied infringement of the ‘312 Patent and raised other defenses. Cambrian filed a second amended complaint on October 6, 2011, which included many of the same allegations as in the original complaint. We filed our answer to the second amended complaint on October 21, 2011, in which we maintained the same denials and defenses as in our initial answer. On December 23, 2011, we filed a motion requesting that the court stay the case with respect to each of the above-noted customer Defendants. Cambrian filed its opposition to our motion on December 30, 2011. Although we believe the court should stay the case with regard to the Defendants, we cannot predict whether the court will grant our motion.

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We may be subject to liability pursuant to the indemnification provisions of our agreements with our customers, including the Defendants, should the outcome of the Cambrian Claim be unfavorable to the Defendants. Based on the information available at this time, we concluded that the likelihood of a loss with respect to this suit is less than reasonably possible and therefore, a range of loss cannot be provided. As a result, we have made no provision for this lawsuit in our financial statements. Factors that we considered in the determination of the likelihood of a loss in respect to this matter included the merits of the case, the nature of the litigation (including the complex and technical nature of patent litigation), the length of time the matter has been pending, and the status of the plaintiff as a non-operating entity.

In addition to the matters described above, we are subject to various legal proceedings, claims and litigation arising in the ordinary course of business. While the outcome of these matters is currently not determinable, we do not expect that the ultimate costs to resolve these matters will have a material effect on our consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows.

Not Applicable.

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PART II

Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “INFN.” The following table sets forth, for the time periods indicated, the high and low sales prices of our common stock as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

As of February 29, 2012, there were 172 registered holders of record of Infinera’s common stock. A substantially greater number of holders of Infinera common stock are “street name” or beneficial holders, whose shares are held by banks, brokers and other financial institutions.

We have not paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends on common stock in the foreseeable future.

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STOCK PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The following graph compares the cumulative 55-month total return provided stockholders on Infinera Corporation’s common stock relative to the cumulative total returns of the NASDAQ Composite Index and the NASDAQ Telecommunications Index. An investment of $100 (with reinvestment of all dividends) is assumed to have been made in our common stock and in each of the indexes on June 7, 2007 and its relative performance is tracked through December 30, 2011. The NASDAQ Telecommunications Index contains securities of NASDAQ-listed companies classified according to the Industry Classification Benchmark as Telecommunications and Telecommunications Equipment. They include providers of fixed-line and mobile telephone services, and makers and distributors of high-technology communication products. This graph is not deemed to be “filed” with the SEC or subject to the liabilities of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the graph shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any prior or subsequent filing by Infinera under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Exchange Act.

COMPARISON OF 55 MONTH CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN*

Among Infinera Corp., the NASDAQ Composite Index,

and the NASDAQ Telecommunications Index

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You should read the following selected consolidated historical financial data below in conjunction with the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the consolidated financial statements, related notes and other financial information included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The selected financial data in this section is not intended to replace the financial statements and is qualified in its entirety by the consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We derived the statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2011, December 25, 2010 and December 26, 2009 and the balance sheet data as of December 31, 2011 and December 25, 2010 from our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes, which are included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We derived the statements of operations data for the years ended December 27, 2008 and December 29, 2007 and the balance sheet data as of December 26, 2009, December 27, 2008 and December 29, 2007 from our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes which are not included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We have not declared or distributed any cash dividends.

Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that should be expected in the future. Additionally, our revenue trends prior to December 27, 2008 had been significantly impacted by the timing of our attainment of vendor specific objective evidence (“VSOE”) of fair value for most of our services. Prior to 2008, revenue from product sales sold in combination with services (“bundled product sales”) was deferred and recognized ratably over a period of approximately one year. In addition, the attainment of VSOE of fair value for most of our services beginning in the first quarter of 2008 required us to recognize a majority of our 2008 product sales as revenue in the period in which the bundled products were accepted by the customer. The combined effect of the recognition of the deferred revenue from prior periods and the upfront recognition of revenue from bundled product sales in 2008 resulted in significantly increased levels of revenue, gross margin and net income for 2008. In the years presented below subsequent to 2008, we did not recognize significant amounts of product related deferred revenue and deferred gross profit from prior periods and do not expect to do so in the future.

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This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include any expectation of earnings, revenues, gross margins, expenses or other financial items; any statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations and personnel; factors that may affect our operating results; statements concerning new products or services, including future PIC capacity and new product delivery and revenue dates; statements related to capital expenditures; statements related to future economic conditions, performance, market growth or our sales cycle; statements related to the liquidity of our auction rate securities; statements as to industry trends and other matters that do not relate strictly to historical facts or statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. These statements are often identified by the use of words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” or “will,” and similar expressions or variations. These statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of our management based on information currently available to management. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results and the timing of certain events to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified below, and those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” included in Item 1A of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. You should review these risk factors for a more complete understanding of the risks associated with an investment in our securities. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this report. We disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements. The following discussion and analysis should be read in conjunction with our “Selected Consolidated Financial Data” and consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Background

Infinera was founded in December 2000 with a unique vision for optical networking. Prior to Infinera, service provider optical networks were built from fairly commoditized products, broadly known as dense wavelength division multiplexing (“DWDM”) systems. Recent growth in bandwidth demand has increased the need for the delivery of high-capacity low-cost bandwidth throughout the network. We believe that traditional point-to-point network architectures do not provide the required flexibility to meet this demand. It takes large amounts of low-cost bandwidth, pervasive Optical Transport Network (“OTN”) switching, and the intelligence of bandwidth management to manage these larger networks and deliver high-capacity services quickly and cost-effectively. Infinera believes this can only be achieved with photonic integrated circuits (“PICs”) and that only through photonic integration can network operators scale their network bandwidth without significant increases in space, power or operational workload.

We first introduced our Digital Optical Network architecture to the market in 2004. This architecture is based on our unique PICs and enables high-capacity low-cost bandwidth in the cloud and distributed switching throughout the network. Since 2004, our strategy has been to extend the benefits of our Digital Optical Network throughout the optical networking market. We have made significant enhancements to our Digital Transport Node System (“DTN platform”) during this time by increasing reach and fiber capacity for the long-haul market, adding the Infinera MTC, a 19-inch chassis option tailored for the metro core market, and adding a submarine version of the DTN platform for the Submarine Line Terminating Equipment market. In addition, we introduced our ATN metro access platform (“ATN platform”), extending Infinera’s digital bandwidth management and intelligent network benefits to the network edge. Finally, in order to meet the growing bandwidth demands of our customers, we introduced our 40 Gigabits per second (“Gbps”) non-PIC based solution in late 2011

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and launched our DTN-X 100 Gbps PIC-based platform, which we anticipate will be available in 2012. The DTN, DTN-X and ATN platforms are designed to operate as a tightly-integrated network with a single management system providing an end-to-end Digital Optical Network experience.

2011 Financial and Business Performance

Although 2011 was a challenging year from a financial performance perspective, we made significant progress in relation to our new product offerings with the introduction of our 40Gbps product and the successful launch of our DTN-X platform. Prior to the release of our 40 Gbps product in the fourth quarter of 2011, we were competitively disadvantaged when competing for higher capacity opportunities. We also experienced reduced sales to Level 3 Communications (“Level 3”) during the year. These combined factors contributed to an 11% decrease in revenues on a year-over-year basis. Our DTN platform continued to compete effectively for other non-capacity constrained opportunities with the addition of 16 new customers during the year,

Our gross margin was 41% in 2011, a decrease from 45% in 2010, reflecting significant DTN-X platform related operational costs and increased competitive pricing pressure. Capital expenditures increased to $39.4 million from $20.7 million in 2010 as we made additional investments associated with DTN-X platform manufacturing equipment and the expansion of our PIC fabrication plant. These investments were made in advance of the recognition of any DTN-X platform related revenues and therefore resulted in lower gross margin as well as operating margin, and an overall reduction to cash resources at the end of the year. We expect to leverage these investments and begin to recognize revenue from the DTN-X platform in the second half of 2012.

Future Business and Industry Trends

Traffic patterns in the optical network continue to grow to accommodate increased bandwidth demand from video, mobility and cloud computing. The market is seeing growing demand for increased fiber capacity with networks migrating from the current 10 Gbps wavelength solutions to 40 Gbps solutions in the short-term and 100 Gbps solutions in the longer-term. Infinera launched the DTN-X platform, a 100 Gbps PIC-based solution, in September 2011, with expected volume production in 2012. The DTN-X platform will incorporate our 500 Gbps PICs and our 5 Terabit OTN switch and will combine competitive fiber capacity with the unique features of the Digital Optical Network. We continue to extend our Digital Optical Network into the metro market with new releases of our ATN platform and into the submarine market with a product extension of our DTN platform. Our ATN platform is a metro access solution that extends Infinera’s digital bandwidth management and intelligent software operating system benefits to the network edge.

Our goal is to be a leading provider of optical networking systems to communications service providers, internet content providers, cable operators, subsea network operators, and others. Our revenue growth will depend on the continued acceptance of our products, growth of communications traffic and the proliferation of next-generation bandwidth-intensive services, which are expected to drive the need for increased levels of bandwidth. Our ability to increase revenue and achieve profitability will be directly affected by the level of acceptance of our products in the long-haul and metro DWDM markets and by our ability to cost-effectively develop and sell innovative products that leverage our technology advantages on a time-to-market basis.

As of December 31, 2011, we have sold our network platforms for deployment in the optical networks of 98 customers worldwide, including Colt, Cox Communications, Deutsche Telekom, Equinix, Inc., Interoute, KVH, TeliaSonera, Level 3, NTT, OTE, Pacnet and XO Communications. We currently have 33 ATN customers enjoying the benefits of an ATN platform and 28 of those have deployed an integrated ATN-DTN solution. We do not have long-term sales commitments from our

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customers. To date, a few of our customers have accounted for a significant portion of our revenue. In particular, Level 3 accounted for less than 10%, and approximately 15% and 17% of our revenue in 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively. Our business will be harmed if any of our key customers, including Level 3, do not generate as much revenue as we forecast, stop purchasing from us, or substantially reduce their orders to us. In October 2011, Level 3 announced that it had completed its acquisition of Global Crossing. This transaction may negatively impact the revenue we receive from the combined entity in the future, although we cannot predict the timing of such impact.

We are headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with employees located throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. We expect to continue to add some personnel in the United States and internationally to develop our products and provide additional geographic sales and technical support coverage. We primarily sell our products through our direct sales force, with a small portion sold indirectly through resellers. We derived 97%, 98% and 94% of our revenue from direct sales to customers for 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively. We expect to continue generating a substantial majority of our revenue from direct sales in the future.

Our near-term year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter revenue will likely be volatile and may be impacted by several factors including general economic and market conditions, time-to-market development of new products, acquisitions of new customers and the timing of large product deployments.

We will continue to make significant investments in the business, and management currently believes that operating expenses for 2012 will range from $260 million to $270 million, including stock-based compensation expense of approximately $40 million to $45 million.

Results of Operations

Revenue

The following table sets forth, for periods presented, certain consolidated statements of operations information (in thousands, except %):

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The following table summarizes our revenue by geography and sales channel for the periods presented (in thousands, except %):

2011 Compared to 2010. Total revenue decreased to $404.9 million in 2011 from $454.4 million in 2010. The decrease in revenue was primarily due to a reduction in demand from existing customers, reflecting increased customer demand for higher capacity solutions that we did not offer in 2011 and a reduction in overall demand from Level 3. The effects of this reduction in demand from existing customers, combined with the impact of increased pricing pressure, was somewhat offset by improved levels of common equipment deployments with new customers.

International revenue increased to 30% of total revenue in 2011 from 25% of total revenue in 2010. The increases were primarily due to an increased proportion of our sales occurring in Europe. While we expect international revenues to continue to grow in absolute dollars on a long-term basis as we increase our sales activities in Europe, Asia Pacific and other regions, this metric may fluctuate as a percentage of total revenue depending on the size and timing of deployments both internationally and in the United States.

Total product revenue decreased to $349.5 million in 2011 from $401.6 million in 2010. A reduction in demand from existing customers, including Level 3, combined with a competitive pricing environment during 2011, were the key drivers for the reduction in product revenues.

Product and related support services revenue that is recognized ratably includes sales of products and services that were deferred under previous accounting standards, prior to our adoption of ASU 2009-13 and ASU 2009-14 as further discussed in Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, because vendor specific objective evidence of fair value had not been established for the undelivered elements. Total ratable revenue levels decreased to $3.2 million in 2011 from $6.2 million in 2010 due to an overall reduction in sales of products and services that were deferred following our adoption of ASU 2009-13 and ASU 2009-14. We have a limited number of software offerings and related support services that will continue to be

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accounted for under the software revenue recognition rules. We expect to continue to record a small amount of ratable revenue when arrangements include bundled services related to our software offerings for which VSOE has not been established.

Total services revenue increased to $52.2 million in 2011 from $46.6 million in 2010 primarily reflecting the incremental recognition of $5.4 million related to extended hardware warranty service revenue, $2.5 million related to our software subscription service revenue, $1.8 million related to our spares management service revenue, $0.4 million of network management services revenue, and $0.4 million of first line management services revenue, partially offset by decrease of $4.9 million related to deployment services revenue. As our installed customer base grows, we expect to continue to grow our extended hardware warranty and spares management services revenues in future periods.

We do not have the visibility necessary to accurately predict future revenues beyond a one-quarter time horizon, particularly as we ramp production and gain customer adoption of our new products in 2012. However, we continue to believe that our competitive positioning will improve throughout 2012 as we introduce these new products.

2010 Compared to 2009. Total revenue increased to $454.4 million in 2010 from $309.1 million in 2009. This increase in revenue reflected an overall recovery in the economy combined with increased bandwidth demand across our customer base. We experienced increased business activity with many of our customers, including strong demand from our cable and internet content customers in North America and from Level 3.

Revenue levels in the first half of 2009 were significantly impacted by the downturn in the economy as new and existing customers delayed purchasing decisions and limited their new purchases.

International revenue decreased to 25% of total revenue in 2010 from 31% in 2009. This decrease was primarily attributable to increased levels of sales to domestic customers in 2010. While we expect international revenues to continue to grow in absolute dollars on a long-term basis as we increase our sales activities in Europe, Asia Pacific and other regions, this metric may fluctuate as a percentage of total revenue depending on the size and timing of deployments both internationally and in the United States.

Total product revenue increased to $401.6 million in 2010 from $276.0 million in 2009 primarily due to increased sales of our DTN platform to new and existing customers, reflecting an overall improvement in the economic environment and continued growth in bandwidth demand.

Product and related support and services revenue that is recognized ratably includes sales of products and services that were deferred under previous accounting standards, because VSOE of fair value had not been established for undelivered elements. Total ratable revenue levels increased to $6.2 million in 2010 from $4.2 million in 2009. This increase in 2010 was primarily due to the recognition of revenue from prior period sales of our ATN platform where the products were bundled with new services for which VSOE had not been established.

Total services revenue increased to $46.6 million in 2010 from $28.9 million in 2009. This increase primarily reflected the incremental recognition of $8.3 million related to deployment services revenue, $4.3 million related to our software subscription service revenue, $3.0 million related to extended hardware warranty service revenue, and $1.6 million related to our spares management service revenue.

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Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin

2011 Compared to 2010. Gross margin decreased to 41% in 2011 from 45% in 2010. This decrease primarily reflected incremental costs associated with the expansion of our PIC FAB facility and new product introduction costs related to our next-generation products combined with reduced product shipments and the need for increased pricing discounts in order to remain competitive.

2010 Compared to 2009. Gross margin increased to 45% from 33% in 2009. A higher proportion of our revenue came from our higher gross margin tributary adaptor and line modules in 2010 as compared to 2009. This reflected strong demand for bandwidth in the year as customers filled out higher capacity footprint. Additionally, the unusually low level of gross margin in 2009 was primarily due to the following factors:

See Note 7, “Restructuring and Other Related Costs,” to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for more information on our Maryland FAB restructuring plan.

We do not have the visibility necessary to accurately predict future gross margins beyond a one-quarter time horizon. However, based on our current outlook, we expect gross margins in 2012 to be consistent with current levels as we ramp production and gain customer adoption of our new products.

Operating Expenses

The following table summarizes our operating expenses for the periods presented (in thousands, except %):

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The following table summarizes the stock-based compensation expense included in our operating expenses (in thousands):

Research and Development Expenses

2011 Compared to 2010. Research and development expenses increased $8.6 million in 2011 from 2010 primarily due to increased headcount and personnel-related costs of $2.6 million primarily associated with next-generation product development. This comprised of $1.9 million of cash compensation and $0.7 million of stock-based compensation expense. In addition, during 2011, we incurred $1.6 million of increased depreciation, $1.4 million increase in professional and outside services, $1.1 million in travel and entertainment expenses, $1.2 million increase in spending on equipment and software, and $0.7 million increase in facilities and other costs, as compared to 2010.

2010 Compared to 2009. Research and development expenses increased $21.2 million in 2010 from 2009 primarily due to increased headcount and personnel-related costs of $14.2 million, including $10.2 million of cash compensation and $4.0 million of stock-based compensation expenses. In addition, in 2010, we incurred $7.5 million of increased spending related to materials, prototype and new product spending and $0.6 million in professional and outside services. This was partially offset by a decrease of $1.1 million related to depreciation expense and other costs. This increase in research and development expenses reflects ongoing investments in our higher fiber capacity platforms combined with investments in our ATN platform.

Sales and Marketing Expenses

2011 Compared to 2010. Sales and marketing expenses increased $6.7 million in 2011 from 2010 primarily due to $2.7 million in compensation and personnel-related expenses due to increased headcount, $1.7 million of increased travel and related expenses, $1.2 million of increased marketing program expenses and trade show costs, $0.9 million of increased stock-based compensation expense, a $0.4 million increase related to outside professional services, $0.6 million of increased facilities and other costs, and $0.2 million related to increased expenses for customer lab trials. These increases were offset by $1.0 million in decreased sales commission expense.

2010 Compared to 2009. Sales and marketing expenses increased $9.7 million in 2010 from 2009 primarily due to an increase of $5.8 million in cash compensation and personnel expenses. This increase included $4.4 million of sales commissions primarily related to an over-achievement of the sales plan for the year. Additionally, stock-based compensation expense increased $1.4 million and travel and entertainment expenses and other costs increased $1.1 million. In 2010, we also incurred $0.9 million related to incremental customer lab trials and marketing prototype materials, and $0.5 million of additional professional and outside services.

General and Administrative Expenses

2011 Compared to 2010. General and administrative expenses decreased $3.7 million in 2011 from 2010 primarily due to a $2.1 million decrease in cash compensation which included the impact of reduced management bonuses, $1.4 million of decreased stock-based compensation expense, and a

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$0.7 million decrease in facilities and other costs. These decreases were partially offset by increased depreciation costs of $0.4 million and increased professional services costs of $0.1 million.

2010 Compared to 2009. General and administrative expenses increased $12.8 million in 2010 from 2009 primarily due to $5.0 million of cash compensation, which includes the impact of increased headcount and management bonuses, and $4.8 million of stock-based compensation expense. In addition, facilities and professional services costs increased by $0.8 million and depreciation and amortization expense increased by $0.5 million. Additionally, 2009 was impacted by a recovery of doubtful accounts of $1.7 million.

Restructuring and Other Costs

In 2011, we recorded a credit of $0.1 million due to a change in estimates associated with facility-related costs. In 2010, we incurred $0.2 million of restructuring and other costs associated with the closure of our Maryland FAB. We incurred $0.8 million of restructuring and other related costs in 2009 which was comprised of non-cash charges of $0.6 million associated with operating lease termination costs and equipment and facilities-related costs and $0.2 million related to severance and related expenses and other exit costs. We completed our restructuring actions in 2010. For more information, see Note 7, “Restructuring and Other Related Costs,” to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Other Income (Expense), Net

2011 Compared to 2010. Interest income decreased in 2011 from 2010 due to lower interest rates on investments and lower average investment balances. Other gain (loss), net for 2011 includes $1.0 million of unrealized and realized losses due to foreign currency exchange, a gain of $0.3 million from the sale of assets and a gain of $0.2 million related to an insurance claim settlement.

2010 Compared to 2009. Interest income decreased in 2010 from 2009 due to lower interest rates on investments and lower average investment balances. In 2009, we recognized net credit impairment losses of $1.1 million related to the determination that our available-for-sale auction rate securities (“ARS”) were other-than-temporarily impaired, as discussed in Note 3, “Fair Value Measurements and Other-Than-Temporary Impairments,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. Other gain (loss), net for 2010 includes $0.7 million of unrealized and realized losses due to foreign currency exchange re-measurement and $0.3 million gain on asset sales.

Income Tax Provision (Benefit)

During 2009, we recognized a tax benefit of approximately $2.1 million for a reversal of 2008 federal and state tax provisions, following a favorable ruling by the Internal Revenue Service in the third quarter of 2009. Exclusive of this one-time benefit in 2009, we recognized income tax expense of

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approximately $1.7 million in 2011 and $0.3 million in each of the fiscal years 2010 and 2009, on pre-tax book losses of $80.1 million, $27.6 million and $88.5 million, respectively. Exclusive of the one-time benefit mentioned above, the resulting effective tax rates of 2.1%, 1.1% and 0.4% for 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively, differs from the expected statutory rate of 35% based upon unbenefited U.S. losses, non-deductible stock compensation charges and foreign taxes provided on foreign subsidiary earnings, offset by the benefit related to refundable research and development tax credits in 2009. The increase in the 2011 tax expense relates primarily to the expiration of the India tax holiday as well as the re-measurement of India transfer pricing FIN 48 reserves following a recent Competent Authority Ruling with similar fact patterns. Our India subsidiary operated under a tax holiday which expired on March 31, 2011 and the net impact of this tax holiday in prior years was to decrease our net loss by approximately $0.5 million and $0.4 million in 2010 and 2009, respectively, resulting in no per share effect in each year.

During 2011, 2010 and 2009, income tax benefits of $0.1 million, $0.3 million and $0.3 million, respectively, for each year were allocated to the tax provision from continuing operations, related to the tax effects of items credited directly to other comprehensive income (“OCI”). Generally, the amount of tax expense or benefit allocated to continuing operations is determined without regard to the tax effects of other categories of income or loss, such as OCI. However, an exception to the general rule is provided within the intra-period tax allocations rules when there is a pre-tax loss from continuing operations and there are items charged or credited to other categories, including OCI, in the current year. The intra-period tax allocation rules related to items charged or credited directly to OCI can result in disproportionate tax effects that remain in OCI until certain events occur.

As of December 31, 2011, we recorded a full valuation allowance against our U.S. net deferred tax assets based upon our cumulative loss incurred since inception. Realization of deferred tax assets is dependent upon future taxable earnings, if any, the timing and amount of which are uncertain. Accordingly, the net U.S. deferred tax assets were fully offset by a valuation allowance.

As of December 31, 2011, we have net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $266.9 million for federal tax purposes and $239.8 million for state tax purposes. If not utilized, these carryforwards will begin to expire in 2021 for federal tax purposes and 2013 for state tax purposes. Additionally, we have federal and California research and development credits available to reduce future income tax expense of approximately $22.9 million and $19.1 million, respectively. The federal research credits will begin to expire in the year 2021 if not utilized, while the California research credits have no expiration date.

We maintain net operating losses generated from excess tax benefits associated with the accumulated stock award attributes in a memo account, not included in the deferred tax inventory balances. The additional tax benefit associated with these stock award attributes, of which the net operating loss amounts are included in the carryforward amounts noted above, is not recognized until the deduction reduces cash taxes payable. At December 31, 2011, we had unbenefited stock option deductions for federal and California tax purposes of $35.9 million and $33.2 million, respectively. When utilized, the estimated tax benefits of approximately $14.3 million will result in a credit to stockholders’ equity.

Utilization of these net operating losses and tax credit carryforwards will be subject to an annual limitation due to provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, that are applicable if we experience an “ownership change” that may occur, for example, by a change in significant stockholder allocation or equity structure. Based upon our analysis, we have determined that an ownership change has occurred, however, the resulting limitation is not significant enough to cause our tax loss and credit carryforwards to expire unutilized.

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In determining future taxable income, we make assumptions to forecast federal, state and international operating income, the reversal of temporary differences, and the implementation of any feasible and prudent tax planning strategies. The assumptions require significant judgment regarding the forecasts of future taxable income, and are consistent with our income forecasts used to manage our business. We intend to maintain the remaining valuation allowance until sufficient further positive evidence exists to support a reversal of, or decrease, in the existing valuation allowance.

Utilization of these net operating losses and tax credit carryforwards will be subject to an annual limitation due to provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, that are applicable if we experience an “ownership change” that may occur, for example, by a change in significant stockholder allocation or equity structure. Based upon our analysis, we have determined that an ownership change has occurred, however, the resulting limitation is not significant enough to cause our tax loss and credit carryforwards to expire unutilized.

In determining future taxable income, we make assumptions to forecast federal, state and international operating income, the reversal of temporary differences, and the implementation of any feasible and prudent tax planning strategies. The assumptions require significant judgment regarding the forecasts of future taxable income, and are consistent with our income forecasts used to manage our business. We intend to maintain the remaining valuation allowance until sufficient further positive evidence exists to support a reversal of, or decrease, in the existing valuation allowance.

Liquidity and Capital Resources