The global service provider router and switch market totaled $3.3 billion in the first quarter of this year, down 13 percent from the previous quarter, but up 3 percent from a year ago, according to the latest IHS Infonetics Service Provider Routers and Switches report. IHS Infonetics said that architectural changes based on virtualization and packet-optical technologies will push the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the worldwide service provider router and switch market to 2.1 percent over the next 5 years.
At the same time, the global Virtual routers(vRouter) market is in early stages, said the firm, and is forecast to grow 125% from 2015 to 2016, led by demand in the Asia Pacific region. IHS Infonetics added that vRouters made their debut in real-world use cases only in the last few years, for example, Brocade's Vyatta vRouter.
Infonetics also said that the router and carrier Ethernet switch (CES) revenue by geography for the first quarter of this year showed North America, EMEA and Latin America posting higher revenues while Asia Pacific recording a drop in its year-over-year figures. IHS Infonetics also added that based on a 4-quarter rolling average, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Huawei and Juniper (in alphabetical order) came out top in terms of the router and CES vendor market share.
Michael Howard, Senior Research Director, Carrier Networks, IHS
Carriers' plans to move more services off edge routers and onto NFV servers and to shift more metro and transport functions to packet-optical transport systems (P-OTS) does not mean that router and switch spending will take a sizable downturn over the next five years. Rather, revenue will grow slowly.
