Based on IDC’s APeJ Quarterly Switch and Router tracker, Indian Ethernet Switch and Router Market which includes the Wireless LAN segment showed signs of growth in the Q1 2014, recording 7.24 % increase to over USD 226.4 million in the first quarter.
IDC says that strong demand from the service provider segment to cater for the exponential growth in the mobile data and the rollouts of LTE networks are among the key factors contributing to the growth, but cautioned that newer technologies in this segment such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) could hamper the growth.
The Q1 Ethernet Switch market has shown close to 10% growth as compared to a quarter before, reaching USD 107.8 million, but has declined 9.8% in comparison to Q1 2013.
In the case of the router market, for Q1, it has shown a signficant growth trend, recording USD 82.7 million sales, with 68.2% rise compared a quarter before and 40.1% rise as compared to Q1 2013.
According to IDC, enterprises made the largest contribution to the Ethernet Switch and Router market in India, continuing the trend from the last few quarters whereas the service provider segment showed signs of revival with the highest growth rate in the recent quarters.
"The investments in the conventional networking infrastructure will be affected by the highly-revered Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and will evolve with time to give a noticeable revenue stream to vendors. Additionally, the in-house manufacturing of white-label box network devices by the big customers is also a blow to the incumbent networking vendors who are already reeling under margin pressures."
- Suman Bisht, Market Analyst, Enterprise Networking, IDC India
"Inexorable data growth, strong competition, and consumer demands are the major factors driving the growth of network market in India. With market-friendly policies and leapfrog disruptions like LTE rollouts, the market is expected to sail through the tough waters ahead."
- Gaurav Sharma, Research Manager, Enterprise, IDC India