Infonetics Optimism on Service Provider Router/Switch Market contrasts with Cisco’s Cautious Outlook

Introduction: Market research firm Infonetics Research recently released vendor market share and preliminary analysis from its 4th quarter 2012 (4Q12) and year-end Service Provider Routers and Switches report. (Full report will be published February 25th.  Infonetics is quite upbeat about this market segment for 2013, despite the cautious outlook from market leader Cisco Systems. Service Provider (SP) ROUTER and SWITCH Market Highlights: For all major world regions except North America, the 4th quarter of 2012 was strong, with global IP edge and core router and carrier Ethernet switch revenue rising to $3.8 billion, up 12% from the previous quarter While North America was down a bit sequentially in 4Q12, the region is up 13% from the year-ago 4th quarter, the highest year-over-year gain of any region In 2012, sales of core routers slowed more than edge routers, as the coming move to 100G is making carriers increasingly cautious as they choose the next generation of higher-capacity core routers The top 4 manufacturers in the router and carrier Ethernet switch segment stayed in dominant positions in 2012, with #1 Cisco and #2 Huawei holding steady, while Alcatel-Lucent moved into the #3 spot, bumping Juniper to #4 In the race for router-only market share, Cisco [...]