Cisco storms back in IP edge market, Huawei posts biggest loss

CAMPBELL, USA: Infonetics Research released excerpts from its third quarter 2011 (3Q11) Service Provider Routers and Switches vendor market share report, which analyzes the IP edge router, IP core router, and carrier Ethernet switch (CES) market segments and the manufacturers within them.

“Of the top five vendors, only Cisco increased its overall carrier router and switch revenue in the third quarter of 2011, up 3 percent from the previous quarter to $1.43 billion. Since Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Juniper and ZTE all saw double-digit percent declines in their carrier router and switch revenue in the same period, Cisco rises back up to over 40% market share for the first time this year,” notes Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks at Infonetics Research.

Howard adds: “In the critical IP Edge segment (edge routers and carrier Ethernet switches), which now makes up 79 percent of the carrier router and switch market, Cisco expanded its lead to 36.2 percent on the strength of its recently refreshed carrier Ethernet switch portfolio and its ASR 9000. Cisco’s share gain is at the expense of its top competitors, particularly Huawei. With Huawei posting the largest sequential drop in IP edge market share in 3Q11, from 17.2 percent to 12.3 percent, Cisco’s IP edge share now nearly triples Huawei’s.”

Highlights
* The global service provider router and switch market, which includes IP edge routers, IP core routers, and carrier Ethernet switches (CES), is down 7.1 percent sequentially to $3.5 billion, following a 14.3% increase the previous quarter.

* Year-over-year, the carrier router and switch market is up 4.5 percent.

* In 3Q11, the IP edge segment (IP edge routers and CES), is down 6.7 percent sequentially but up 4.3 percent from the year-ago third quarter.

* Top vendors posting gains in the IP edge segment in 3Q11 over 2Q11: Alaxala, Cisco, Ericsson, NEC, and Nokia Siemens.

* Regionally, North America lead the downward trend in 3Q11 with the largest decline in carrier router and switch revenue (-15 percent from 2Q11), despite all the concerns about the Euro zone.

* The EMEA and Asia Pacific regions each posted 6 percent declines, while Central and Latin America (CALA) is the only region that posted an increase, led by Brazil.