Infonetics: IP edge sales drive up switch, router market

Strong sales of IP edge routers helped drive worldwide revenue of routers and switches 17 percent in Q4 09. However compelling the fourth quarter was, it could not prevent a 12 percent decline to $11.1 billion for the year.

Not surprisingly, the ongoing decline in sales of multiservice ATM switches--a segment that has continued to decline for multiple quarters--was a major contributor to the downward trend.

In 2009 there were various positional shifts amongst the router/switch vendors. Cisco and Juniper may have continued to lead the market, but their market share dropped from 69 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009, while Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei increased share. At the same time, Tellabs's focus on the wireless sector enabled it to beat out Ericsson and be listed on the top five switching/routing vendor segments for the first time.  

"All six of the top router vendors posted strong double-digit revenue increases in the fourth quarter, and we expect modest growth in the router segment to continue in 2010 as carriers carry out fixed-mobile convergence strategies for their router networks," said Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research in a release.

On the regional front, Asia Pacific stood out with 19 percent year-over-year growth in IP edge and core router revenue. Infonetics attributes growth in Asia-Pacific to the Chinese government's aggressive telecom stimulus and reorganization of its top service providers.

For more:
- see the release here