Router And Switch Sales Show Strong 3Q: Report

IP router and switch sales and revenues showed strong growth in the third quarter of 2005, according to Infonetics Research, with security-enabled hardware showing particularly significant gains.

The firm reports that global revenues from sales of service provider and carrier routers and switched rose 3% over the second quarter, to reach $1.86 billion last quarter. IP edge router revenues showed a particular improvement, rising 7% over the previous quarter and 22% over the same time last year to reach $874 million last quarter.

Infonetics notes a similar trend in the enterprise router market, where revenues were up 8% over last quarter and 3% over the third quarter of last year to reach $859 million. While revenues were up, so were shipments. The number of enterprise routers shipped last quarter were a 3% increase over the previous quarter, and a 27% rise over the same quarter last year. Significantly, revenues from sales of secure routers jumped 21% in the third quarter, and have more than doubled since the same time last year.

Layer 2-3 -3 switch revenues also showed signs of growth, while Layer 4-7 switch sales were a little more tepid for the third quarter. Revenues from L2-L3 switches were up 6% over last quarter, reaching $3.95 billion, with the number of ports shipped increasing 7% to over 70 million in the same period. While worldwide Layer 4-7 switch sales and revenues were both up 19% over last year, revenues only rose 1% in the third quarter of 2005.

Cisco remains a dominant player in all three markets, accounting for 80% of enterprise router revenues, 41% of service provider router and switch revenues and 51% of IP edge routers. The company had a particularly good quarter in Layer 2-7 switch sales, and is the undisputed leader in all product segments except in Layer 4-7 switches, where it is a close second to L5.