While Cisco continued to flourish with its first-quarter Ethernet switch revenue, Juniper Networks ran into a speed bump.
According to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) Cisco finished the first quarter of 2019 with an 8.3% year-over-year increase in overall Ethernet switch revenues, while holding down a market share of close to 54%. By contrast, Juniper's Ethernet switch revenue was down 23% in same quarter, which brought its market share to 2.6%.
Cisco is also leading the pack in the highly contested 25 Gbps/100 Gbps segment with almost 40% of that market's revenue. Cisco's combined service provider and enterprise router revenue increased 15.3% year over year, with enterprise router revenue increasing about 16%, while service provider revenue grew by about 15%
Overall, Cisco's combined service provider and enterprise router market share rose to 42%, up from 37% in last year's fourth quarter. Juniper posted an 8% decline in its combined enterprise and service provider router sales, which brought its router market share to 10%, according to IDC.
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Huawei's Ethernet switch revenue increased 19% on an annualized basis, giving the company a market share of 9%, which was an increase from 8.1% a year earlier. Huawei's combined service provider and enterprise router revenue rose 5.7% year over year with a market share of 24.5%.
Arista Networks also posted solid results in the first quarter. Its Ethernet switch revenues increased 24%, bringing its share to 7.5% of the total market, up from 6.5% a year earlier. IDC said Arista continues to cater to the higher end of Ethernet switch speeds that are needed by hyperscale and cloud providers. Arista's 100 Gbps revenues accounted for 67% of the company's total revenue.
On the other hand, HPE's Ethernet switch revenue declined 5.6% year over year, giving the company a market share of 5.3%.
"There continue to be diverging trends across the Ethernet switch market," said Petr Jirovsky, research director, IDC Networking Trackers, in a prepared statement. "Hyperscalers and service providers continue to demand the fastest Ethernet switching speeds in the market, leading to the highest growth rates in both port shipments and revenues.
"Meanwhile, the more mature enterprise switching platforms continue to make up a larger share of the overall market."
The worldwide Ethernet switch market, which includes Layer 2 and Layer 3, grew by 8% year over year while recording $8.6 billion in revenue the first quarter.
The worldwide total enterprise and service provider router market revenues grew 8% year over year in the first quarter to $3.6 billion. The growth rates are according to results published in the IDC Quarterly Ethernet Switch Tracker and IDC Quarterly Router Tracker.
IDC's research found that 100 Gbps Ethernet switch revenues continued to grow at robust rate. Port shipments for 100 Gbps switches rose 85.% year over year to 3.6 million. IDC's research found that 100 Gbps revenues grew 59% year over year in the first quarter to $1.2 billion, making up 17.3% of the market's revenue.
IDC said that 25 Gbps ports also saw impressive growth, increasing 133% to $304 million, with port shipments growing 105% year over year.
On the other side of the ledger, 40 Gbps switches are falling out of favor, with revenues declining 21% year over year. Lower-speed campus switches, a more mature part of the market, showed moderate growth. Shipments for 10Gbps ports rose 8.6% year over year to make up 29% of the market's revenue, while 1 Gbps switches grew 2.9% year over year in port shipments, making up 40% of the market's total revenues.
"Organizations across the globe are looking to digitally transform themselves in an effort to meet market and competitive needs and improve user experiences. As they do so, enterprises are realizing the critical role the network plays in their broader IT transformation initiatives," said IDC's Rohit Mehra, vice president, Network Infrastructure, in a statement. "This has led to continued, and growing, investment in Ethernet switching, routing, software-defined networks (SDN), and SD-WAN platforms and architectures that support the increasing demands of an always-connected world."