Cisco Q4 Ethernet switch revenue up, HP's down

IDC numbers show Huawei doubled switch revenue in Q4 vs. a year ago

HP's Ethernet switch revenue dropped 5% in the fourth quarter vs. the fourth quarter of 2010, while market leader Cisco gained 3.3%, according to the latest IDC research.

The biggest gainer in the quarter was Huawei, which almost doubled its revenue. Juniper had an 18% gain and Brocade was up 16% in a Layer 2-3 market that saw 5% growth overall in the fourth quarter, to $5.7 billion.

ON THE HORIZON: Extreme Networks ships 192-port 40G Ethernet switch

HP's Ethernet switch revenue dropped 5% in the fourth quarter vs. the fourth quarter of 2010, while market leader Cisco gained 3.3%, according to the latest IDC research.

The biggest gainer in the quarter was Huawei, which almost doubled its revenue. Juniper had an 18% gain and Brocade was up 16% in a Layer 2-3 market that saw 5% growth overall in the fourth quarter, to $5.7 billion.

ON THE HORIZON: Extreme Networks ships 192-port 40G Ethernet switch

Cisco's big comeback

For all of 2011, the worldwide Layer 2-3 switch market totaled $21.134 billion, up slightly from $21.1 billion in 2010. Cisco's revenue dropped 4.4% for the year while HP's remained flat at .2%. Huawei gained 37%, Juniper 19% and Brocade 5% for the year, IDC found.

In terms of revenue share, Cisco once again topped the leader board with 64% share, though it was down 3% from 2010. HP has been flat since 2009 at 9%, and Alcatel-Lucent was third at 3%, essentially flat from 2010.

Juniper logged 2.3% share, up from 1.9% in 2010; Brocade was also at 2.3%, essentially flat from 2010. Huawei had a 1.8% share, up from 1.3% in 2010.

In ports, 10G Ethernet switch revenue increased 32.9% year over year, and 5.1% over the prior quarter, IDC found. Port shipments of 10G Ethernet grew to a record 2.8 million ports in the quarter, and for the full year, 10G Ethernet market revenue grew 26.5% over 2010, while port shipments more than doubled during the same period, according to the firm.

Click to see: Ethernet switch market chart

Growing rapidly is 40G Ethernet, which reached over 12,000 ports in the fourth quarter.

Gigabit Ethernet declined slightly from last year, from $3.7 billion to $3.64 billion in the fourth quarter. Fast Ethernet declined from $700 million in 2010's fourth quarter to $553 million in fourth quarter 2011, a reduction of 21%.

Read more about lans & wans in Network World's LANs & WANs section.