Cisco / HP battle heats up in Ethernet switch and enterprise router markets


There is a fierce competition going on between Cisco and
HP to gain leadership position in the Ethernet switch and enterprise router
markets.


Market leaders Cisco and HP had steady revenue market
share from Q1 2011 to Q2 2011, but Cisco’s share is down more than 3 points
from a year ago, while HP is up by over 2 points.


Juniper, Enterasys, and Extreme outpaced the overall
Ethernet switch market with double-digit revenue growth and small gains in
revenue share this quarter.


Ethernet switch buyers are in the driver’s seat right
now, as vendors are fiercely competing for their business.


While the battle is mostly playing out between Cisco and
HP, other vendors are caught in the crossfire, with declining ASPs being one
side effect. In the switch market, we expect this to result in stagnating
revenue despite robust demand in 2011,” said Matthias Machowinski, directing
analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research.


Ethernet switch sales rebounded in Q2 2011 from Q1 2011,
up 6 percent to $4.4 billion worldwide, but continue their year-over-year slide
(down 3 percent from Q2 2010).


Ethernet switch port shipments are up both sequentially
(+8 percent) and year-over-year (+11 percent) in Q2 2011, reflecting ASP
declines due to heavy competition.


The 10G segment grew the most, up 19 percent
quarter-over-quarter and 58 percent year-over-year.


Ethernet switch port shipments are up in all major world
regions year-over-year, indicating widespread demand for networking products.


Enterprise router sales grew 6 percent sequentially in Q2
2011, to $843 million worldwide; unit shipments grew 11 percent


North America was the top performer in the enterprise
router market in Q2 2011, lifted by the retail vertical.


High-end routers continue to be a bright spot as buyers
invest in the network core to deal with rising traffic.


Meanwhile, growth in branch routing continues to lag due
to a lack of significant business expansion.


Vendors with sequential increases in global enterprise
router revenue in Q2 2011 include Cisco (up 3 percent), HP (up 26 percent), Juniper
(up 14 percent), and OneAccess (up 40 percent).


By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]