According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Networks Tracker, the worldwide Ethernet switch market reached revenues of $5.9bn in the third quarter of 2011 (3Q11), representing growth of 6.1% year over year and 10.9% quarter-over-quarter.
The worldwide router market also grew 2.9% year over year in 3Q11. The final 3Q11 results show good Ethernet switch market performance in the Asia/Pacific region, which increased 27.8% year over year, now accounts for 25.8% of worldwide revenue.
IDC director Enterprise Communications Infrastructure Rohit Mehra said after a weaker than expected first half of 2011, the Ethernet switch market rebounded strongly this quarter largely on the basis of healthy demand in the Asia/Pacific region.
"China experienced remarkable 44.1% year-over-year growth this quarter, but other countries in the region also showed exceptional growth. Australia, Korea, and India, for example, all ended the quarter with 27-30% annual gains, further reaffirming the continued relevance of network infrastructure within enterprise IT," Mehra stated.
10GbE switch revenue increased by 29.9% year over year and by 99% in port shipments owing to continued adoption in data centres and campus core deployments. 10GbE port shipments grew to a record 2.09 million ports in the quarter.
The worldwide router market, after several quarters of high growth, increased by just 2.8% year over year in 3Q11 as the 9.4% year-over-year increase in Asia/Pacific was offset by less than 0.5% growth in both Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
The outperformers included China, which increased by 12.9% year over year, Japan up by 10.9% year over year, Australia with 13.2%year-over-year growth, and Germany with a gain of 8.4% year over year.
But, negative macroeconomic conditions impacted the results in Italy, Portugal, and Greece, which were all down by more than 20% year over year, and Spain, which declined by more than 13% year over year. The service provider segment of the router market, which accounted for 73.9% in 3Q11, grew 5% year over year, while the enterprise segment actually declined 2.8% on an annual basis.
From a vendor perspective, Cisco’s Ethernet switch (Layer 2/3) market share in 3Q11, which includes the strong month of July, the last month of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011, came in at 66.5% reflecting a significant rebound from the 63.8% in 2Q11. Cisco’s market share is now at the highest level reportedly this year. On a relative basis, Cisco continues to be strong in the 10GbE segment where it holds more than 73% of the market in 3Q11.
IDC’s Networking Trackers Group senior research analyst Petr Jirovský said in the broader Ethernet switching market, Gigabit Ethernet revenue increased by 2.7% year over year and port shipments experienced strong growth of 27.1% as the transition from Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet continues. "Gigabit Ethernet now commands a 61.6% share of the overall Ethernet switching market revenue and 46.9% of port shipments," he said.
