Cisco’s Ethernet switch (Layer 2/3) market share decreased to 62.7 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 64.1 percent in Q1 2012, according to IDC.
Cisco’s market share in the 10GbE market segment was 66.7 percent in Q1 2013.
IDC says the Ethernet switch market (Layer 2/3) grew 2.1 percent to $5.28 billion. On a sequential basis, the market declined 7.6 percent. Meanwhile, the router market decreased 7.9 percent.
According to Infonetics Research, the Ethernet switch market grew 1 percent to $4.7 billion worldwide. Port shipments fell 4 percent.Nearly all Ethernet switch vendors reported lower sequential sales in Q1. Cisco is the early leader in 100G Ethernet switch ports.
The Ethernet switch market in China increased 10.6 percent. In Central and Eastern Europe, the growth was 10.3 percent. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) recorded 6.6 percent increase. The United States grew 3.5 percent in Q1.
“While 10GbE continues to drive the worldwide Ethernet switch market, it is interesting to note the increasing divergence in the performance of the overall market across the various regions, and in some cases, specific countries,” said Rohit Mehra, vice president, Network Infrastructure at IDC.
10Gb Ethernet switch (Layer 2/3) revenue increased 12.9 percent year over year to $1.87 billion while 10Gb Ethernet switch port shipments grew 37.6 percent year over year to 3.9 million ports in 1Q13. 10GbE continues to be the primary driver of the overall Ethernet switch market.
The worldwide Layer 4-7 switching market lost some momentum in 1Q13 and decreased 4.3 percent year over year. This was the first annual decline in more than three years.
“While we saw the usual 1st quarter seasonal dip in Ethernet switch sales in 1Q13, overall growth has strengthened over the past 3 quarters, a positive sign given continuing weakness in Europe and lower spending by the U.S. federal government,” said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research.
Meanwhile, the service provider router market declined 7.9 percent, IDC said.
Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) grew 4.2 percent, while North America and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions were down only low single digits on an annual basis. Japan fell by 24.8 percent, Latin America by 22.5 percent, and Western Europe by 20.5 percent.
