* Dell’Oro: Ethernet switch sales up 24% over same period last year
The market for Ethernet switches rebounded in the third quarter of this year, according to recent figures from Dell’Oro Group.
The market research firm said that after declining slightly in the second quarter of 2004, Ethernet switching came back with a vengeance in the third quarter. Sales were up 9% from the second quarter and a full 24% over sales in the third quarter of 2003.
Interestingly, the average per-port selling price – for the total Ethernet switch market – has stayed steady at $97 for a full year.
In a statement, Dell’Oro Group’s Seamus Crehan explained it this way: “Sales of Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch ports are increasing as prices are dropping and users are future-proofing for additional bandwidth requirements.”
He adds that 100M bit/sec fixed-configuration switches are getting more features to cope with rapidly increasing needs for IP telephony, wireless LANs and security.
Meanwhile, the high-end router market has officially grown for six straight quarters. Long after faltering for a bit in 2003, the market managed 4% growth in the third quarter of this year.
Growth was particularly remarkable in 10G bit/sec routers, where Cisco grew 25% and Juniper Networks exploded 57% in revenue. These increases were fueled by service providers attempting to deal with a corresponding surge in broadband subscribers; 10 million new customers signed up in the third quarter alone, Dell’Oro says. Plus, service providers are going to continue to consolidate voice and data traffic, and that means upgrades, the firm says.
