The Ethernet switch market rose 6 percent in the second quarter of 2013 to $5 billion, said Infonetics Research.
Alcatel-Lucent, Enterasys and Juniper posted 20 percent plus sequential revenue gains in the second quarter.
10G ports recovered after a temporary dip in Q1 2013, and are up 39 percent from the year-ago quarter. ( Ethernet switch market share in Q2, Cisco leads ahead of HP )
40G Ethernet is growing rapidly: On the heels of over 1,000 percent growth in 2012, 40G port shipments doubled again sequentially in Q2.
The new 100G Ethernet switch segment tripled from the previous quarter, thanks to broader availability of 100G solutions.
“North America, the largest region for Ethernet switches, was the bright spot, with revenue jumping 15 percent sequentially. However, weak economic conditions persist in EMEA and demand is slowing in China and Japan, tempering overall growth,” said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research.
Meanwhile, Dell’Oro Group said during the second quarter, Juniper regained the number three revenue ranking in the market, and that over 10 vendors shipped 10G Base-T for the first time.
Despite the increase in vendor offerings, only three vendors exceeded 10,000 10G Base-T port shipments in the quarter.
“Cloud providers’ insatiable demand for network equipment continues to spur almost all the revenue growth in the Ethernet Switch market,” said Alan Weckel, Vice President of Ethernet Switch market research at Dell’Oro Group.
Cloud providers’ demand is offsetting delays in Enterprise spending as Enterprises push out the migration from 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
Yet, as the Cloud market matures, we believe growth in the data center could likely stall in 2014, and remain on hold until 2015 when Enterprises begin en-masse migration to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
Many enterprises are remaining comfortable with 1 GigabitEthernet as most server platforms lack low-price 10 GE connections which are enabled by LAN-on-Motherboard (LoM).
