Beancounters at Synergy Research have been adding up some numbers and concluded that the networking switch and router market is growing like crazy.
The sector saw its most significant ever quarterly sales in the third quarter, with revenue passing the $11 billion and has been growing at roughly one per cent annually, with Cisco continuing to dominate.
The analyst claims that the networking giant has 53 percent of the market, but it holds an even greater share in specific areas.
In the enterprise router space, Cisco owns around 63 percent of the market. However, its share in the service provider market is below half, at 40 percent.
Huawei is now Cisco’s closest challenger, while Arista is the fastest-growing in the space.
Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale said: “Despite challenges from SDN, NFV and hyperscalers’ own-design networking gear, the market for Ethernet switches and routers is huge and continues to grow, albeit slowly.”
“While Arista is the high-growth star and Huawei continues to consolidate its number-two ranking in the market, the biggest story is Cisco’s ability to continue controlling over half of the market. It had a particularly strong quarter, and no other vendor is seriously challenging its position.”
Synergy said that over the last four quarters, the switching and router market has been worth $43 billion. Switching is the largest segment, worth over 60 percent of total sales, and the fastest growing.
