Service Provider Router And Switch Market Decreases 14%

The global service provider router and switch market, which includes IP edge routers, IP core routers, and carrier Ethernet switches (CES), sequentially decreased 14 percent to $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2012 (1Q12), reports market research firm Infonetics Research in its latest Service Provider Routers and Switches report. From the year-ago first quarter, the market is essentially flat, down just 1 percent.

“The best way to look at the carrier router and switch market is to analyse the ‘IP Edge,’ the sum of edge routers and carrier Ethernet switches, since routers can switch and switches can route, and many are deployed both ways,” noted Michael Howard, Infonetics Research’s co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks. “Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, and Juniper all gained IP Edge market share in the first quarter, Cisco the most by far, increasing its share from about 31 percent to about 39 percent quarter-over-quarter.”

Howard added, “Cisco is showing signs of a regained focus, and with the biggest installed base of routers at both operators and enterprises, they have an advantage that is hard to compete with.”

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Service Provider Router And Switch Market Highlights

• While the global service provider router and switch market declined in 1Q12, the North American market was up a very healthy 27 percent quarter-over-quarter and up 9 percent from the year-ago first quarter

• The US has been showing many economic growth signals

• In 1Q12, Cisco, Juniper, and Huawei together took 96 percent of global core router revenue

• However, Alcatel-Lucent just entered the core router market, which will shake up the vendor market share landscape once revenue from ALU’s new core router materialises later this year

• Service provider routers and switches are the second largest telecom market segment in 2011 total revenue (~$14.5 billion) after mobile RAN spending ($30+ billion)