Infonetics: Carrier Router/Switch Market Roars Back in 2Q13

Globally, service provider router and switch revenue is up 27% in 2Q13 from 1Q13 to $4 billion, showing that service providers are ready to spend after holding back in the previous quarter, according to a new report from Infonetics.

“The 2nd quarter is usually up for carrier routers and switches, but this one is exceptional given the sluggishness of the past few years. Every major geographical region except Japan notched double-digit sequential growth and, more important, gained from the year-ago quarter,” reports Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.

“In Asia Pacific, carrier router and switch revenue jumped 45% from the previous quarter thanks in large part to Huawei’s and ZTE’s stellar performance,” Howard adds. “And even recent laggard Europe/EMEA gained nicely, possibly signaling a pitch forward.”

Some highlights:

• In the overall carrier router and switch market, Huawei gained 4 market share points in 2Q13, rising back into the #2 spot behind leader Cisco
• IP edge (edge routers and carrier Ethernet switches) revenue grew 30% sequentially in 2Q13, attributable in part to an uptick in the move to 100GE on routers and 100G in optical transport
• Meanwhile, core routers grew the slowest quarter-over-quarter
• Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Huawei and Juniper together account for about 90% of total router (edge and core) revenue in 2Q13
• Over the past 2 years (4-quarter rolling average), Huawei gained the most edge and core router market share points of any vendor, up 5.6 points.

http://www.infonetics.com