Worldwide Ethernet switch market (Layer 2/3) revenues reached US$5.4 billion in the second quarter of 2013 (2Q13), representing a year-over-year decline of -1.1%.
On a sequential basis, the 2Q13 results increased 2.7% over a seasonally weaker first quarter. Meanwhile, the worldwide router market rebounded nicely in 2Q13 with year-over-year growth of 3.7%, which was the highest growth rate seen in two years.
Sequentially, the router marked jumped 14.6% compared to 1Q13, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Ethernet Switch and Router Tracker.
From a geographic perspective, the second quarter results found the Ethernet switch market showing some strength in North America where it increased 4.9% year over year and 14.8% quarter over quarter, followed by Latin America with a small 0.9% year-over-year increase.
These gains were not enough to fully offset the -5.6% and -6.2% year-over-year declines in Asia/Pacific and Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), respectively.
"The worldwide Ethernet switch market is increasingly a tale of two market segments with different market dynamics – the enterprise campus segment, which includes the network edge, and the higher growth datacenter segment that is driving 10GbE and 40GbE growth as cloud rollouts continue to increase," said Rohit Mehra, Vice President, Network Infrastructure at IDC.
"It's also interesting to note the increasing divergence in the performance of the regional and country markets across the various theatres, driven not just by macro-economic issues, but also the state of maturity of datacenter and cloud deployments."
10Gb Ethernet switch (Layer 2/3) revenue increased 12.9% year over year to $2.0 billion while 10Gb Ethernet switch port shipments grew a strong 52% year over year to 4.7 million ports in 2Q13.
10GbE continues to be the primary driver of the overall Ethernet switch market, with the early stage 40GbE starting to reach critical mass as a stand-alone segment.
The worldwide Layer 4-7 switching market returned to positive year-over-year growth in 2Q13 with its 2.4% sequential and 1.2% annual increase this quarter.
The worldwide enterprise and service provider router market performed well in 2Q13, increasing 3.7% year over year and 14.6% sequentially in 2Q13.
"Of course, regional and country-level variances are going to be pronounced, so vendors are best advised to factor those in while working on their near to mid-term strategies."
The IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Ethernet Switch and Router Tracker provides total market size and vendor shares for the Ethernet switch and router technologies in an easy-to-use Excel pivot table format.
The Ethernet switch market is segmented by speed (100Mb, 1000Mb, 10Gb, 40Gb), form factor (fixed managed, fixed unmanaged, modular), and layer (L2, L3, L4-7).