The service provider routers and switches market increased 3 percent year-on-year and dipped 3 percent quarter-on-quarter to $3.7 billion in Q3 2014, said Infonetics Research.
The combined service provider routers and switches include IP edge and core routers and carrier Ethernet switches.
While CALA (Caribbean and Latin America) region grew, other regions declined sequentially in Q3 2014.
The global carrier router and switch market will slowly grow at a compound annual growth rate of just over 3 percent to $17 billion during 2013–2018.
Huawei increased its share the most of any vendor (+4.6 points) from Q3 2012 to Q3 2014, as edge and core router revenue stayed relatively flat. Infonetics did not share market share details of other network vendors.
SDN is slowing router spending as telecom carriers remain cautious about investing in equipment and software that might need to be replaced in the future.
Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research, said: “Carrier Ethernet switches (CES) had an unprecedented quarter, with global revenue up 32 percent from the previous quarter and up 14 percent from a year ago, driven by ZTE in China and Cisco in North America.”
The telecom research report noted an intensifying focus on content delivery networks (CDNs) and smart traffic management across routes to make routers and optical gear cooperate more closely.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
