A new report from Infonetics Research asserts the global service provider router and switch market grew 4% to $3.5 million in the second quarter of 2012. The niche, which includes Carrier Ethernet switches and IP edge and core routers, was a spike in China from a decline, according to the new 2012 (2Q12) Service Provider Routers and Switches report.
In fact, the space was down 9% year on year.
"A nearly 50% increase in revenue in China propped up the global service provider router and switch market in the 2nd quarter," according to Michael Howard, Infonetics Research's co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks. "China was the differentiating factor between a positive worldwide quarter and one that otherwise would have been down."
Continuing caution among service providers in North America and Europe put a damper on IP router/switch sales in the quarter. Latin America joined China in bucking the conservative bent. It was the only major world region to improve versus the second quarter of 2011, jumping 57% in 2Q12.
Current market conditions favor China-based suppliers, it seems. "While Cisco has long led the global IP edge and core router market by very comfortable margins (and whose share is steady from this time last year), Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper, and Huawei have been fighting it out every quarter for the past year-and-a-half for the next three leadership positions,” Howard explains. “The race tightened considerably in the first half of 2012, with Huawei taking the #2 spot in the second quarter."
Meanwhile, ZTE also gained strongly in sales of Carrier Ethernet switches in 2Q12. This was particularly true in China, where service providers are rolling out Carrier Ethernet switches as part of major mobile backhaul deployments.
Infonetics' quarterly Service Provider Routers and Switches report provides worldwide and regional market share, market size, forecasts, and analysis for IP edge routers, IP core routers, and Carrier Ethernet switches.
For more information on switches and routers and their suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.