Telecom Lead America: Cisco, HP and Juniper are the top 3
global Ethernet switch vendors in the first quarter of 2012.
After HP acquired 3Com, Cisco lost Ethernet switch
revenue market share 4 quarters in a row, but Cisco is back to posting market
share gains, albeit modest, on a year-over-year basis
Research firm Infonetics said North American Ethernet
switch revenue is down 11 percent sequentially due to seasonal trends, but
growth jumped 14 percent from the year-ago 1st quarter.
The Ethernet switch revenue totaled $4.7 billion in Q1
2012, down 9 percent from the previous quarter, but up by double-digit
percentages from the year-ago 1st quarter.
Revenue and port growth was well balanced as vendors
continued to successfully sell higher-priced products (such as data center
switches) and faster ports.
Following a 31 percent spike the previous quarter, 10G
Ethernet port shipments declined 1 percent in 1Q12; quarterly shipments are
still double that of a year ago, benefitting from data center upgrades, 10G
server adoption, server virtualization, and core network buildouts.
40G Ethernet sales jumped 50 percent in 1Q12 from 4Q11,
driven by dedicated 40G fixed switches (16xQSFP+).
