Cisco increased its carrier router and switches revenue, while Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Juniper Networks and ZTE all posted declines, according to a recent report by Infonetics Research.
“Of the top five vendors, only Cisco increased its overall carrier router and switch revenue in the third quarter of 2011, up 3 percent from the previous quarter to $1.43 billion. Since Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Juniper and ZTE all saw double-digit percent declines in their carrier router and switch revenue in the same period, Cisco rises back up to over 40 percent market share for the first time this year,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks at Infonetics Research.
“In the critical IP edge segment (edge routers and carrier Ethernet switches), which now makes up 79 percent of the carrier router and switch market, Cisco expanded its lead to 36 percent on the strength of its recently refreshed carrier Ethernet switch portfolio and its ASR 9000. Cisco’s share gain is at the expense of its top competitors, particularly Huawei. With Huawei posting the largest sequential drop in IP edge market share in Q3 2011, from 17 percent to 12 percent, Cisco’s IP edge share now nearly triples Huawei’s.”
Other highlights from the study included:
- The global service provider router and switch market, which includes IP edge routers, IP core routers and carrier Ethernet switches (CES), was down 7 percent sequentially to $3.5 billion, following a 14.3 percent increase the previous quarter.
- Year-over-year, the carrier router and switch market was up 4 percent.
- In the third quarter of this year, the IP edge segment (IP edge routers and CES) was down 7 percent sequentially but up 4 percent from the year-ago third quarter.
- Top vendors posting gains in the IP edge segment in the third quarter over the second quarter this year were: Alaxala, Cisco, Ericsson, NEC and Nokia Siemens.
- Regionally, North America led the downward trend in the third quarter with the largest decline in carrier router and switch revenue (down 15 percent from the second quarter of this year), despite all the concerns about the Euro zone.
- The EMEA and Asia Pacific regions each posted 6 percent declines, while Central and Latin America (CALA) was the only region that posted an increase, led by Brazil.
