Global Ethernet switch market grew 2.1% YoY in Q1

The worldwide Ethernet switch market (Layer 2/3) has approached $5.28 billion in 1Q13, representing YoY growth of 2.1 per cent. This is according to International Data Corp. (IDC) that also revealed that on a sequential basis, the seasonally weaker 1Q13 declined 7.6 per cent over 4Q12. Meanwhile, the global router market was relatively weak in 1Q13 and dropped 7.9 per cent YoY and 13 per cent QoQ, added the market analytics company.

From a geographic perspective, Q1 results found the Ethernet switch market was particularly strong in China where it increased 10.6 per cent YoY, followed by Central and Eastern Europe, which was up 10.3 per cent YoY. As a region, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) came in with a 6.6 per cent increase, while the U.S. also performed relatively well in 1Q13 with an increase of 3.5 per cent YoY. Western Europe remained an area of weakness, declining 6.2 per cent YoY. On a positive note for Western Europe, this was an improvement over the double-digit YoY declines experienced in 3Q12 and 4Q12.

"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, VP, network infrastructure at IDC. "While GbE is still expected to hold its own for the foreseeable future, we expect 10GbE and 40GbE to drive the wired infrastructure market forward in the coming years, both in the data centre as well as campus core deployments. But as the market evolves, we should expect there will be pronounced market differences across the various theaters."