According to a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, 2024 was a difficult year for Ethernet Campus Switch sales, with a 20 percent contraction compared to record revenues in 2023, however, the market is expected to rebound in 2025 and beyond, fueled by refresh cycles and Wi-Fi 7 deployments.
“Wi-Fi 7 Access Points draw twice as much power as Wi-Fi 6,” said Siân Morgan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “Enterprises will need to upgrade their switches to deliver sufficient levels of Power over Ethernet (PoE) in order to benefit from the improvements brought about by Wi-Fi 7. This is especially true in regions that support the 6 GHz band, such as North America and Europe.
“Enterprises recognize the importance of a high-performance Local Area Network (LAN), especially facing the new opportunities brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI). While there is a possibility that some organizations will shift spending to AI projects over the next two to three years, overall, we see enterprise AI adoption as a positive lift for the Ethernet Campus Switch market,” added Morgan.
Additional highlights from the Ethernet Switch–Campus 5-Year January 2025 Forecast Report:
- Richer feature sets, including AIOps functionality, are expected to drive up vendor software revenues.
- Revenue CAGR from the sale of 5.0 Gbps ports is expected to exceed 20 percent between 2024 and 2029, driven by higher speed Wi-Fi APs.
- Hybrid work models being adopted by enterprises will put both downward and upward pressures on campus switch spending.
- Sales to the Americas contracted the most severely of any other macro region in 2024. Despite the economic downturn in China, that region is expected to grow its share of Ethernet Campus Switch revenues.