Vendor revenues from Ethernet switch and router markets fell 14 percent, a seven-year low, to $9.1 billion in Q1 2020, Synergy Research Group said.

The first quarter always drops substantially relative to a seasonal peak in Q4, but the sequential decline of 23 percent was unusually sharp.

Ethernet switches, enterprise routers and service provider routers all saw double digit declines in Q1.

Cisco’s market share in networking switch and routers was 51 percent in Q1, meaning that for eight of the last twelve quarters it has been over the 50 percent mark.

Across the three main markets, Cisco’s Q1 share was 57 percent for Ethernet switches, 65 percent for enterprise routers and 35 percent for service provider routers.

Cisco is followed by Huawei, Nokia, Juniper, Arista Networks and HPE. Beyond this leading group, other active vendors include Ericsson, Extreme, H3C and ZTE.

Ethernet switching is the largest of the three segments accounting for 62 percent of the total Q1 market. While GbE switches remain the largest segment in both fixed and modular Ethernet switches, the most notable feature of the market is the rapid deployment of 100 GbE and 25 GbE fixed switches.

Revenues from enterprise routers fell 15 percent from 2019, but on a trailing twelve month basis the market still grew thanks to strong numbers in the previous three quarters.

Service Provider routers saw the biggest decline in the first quarter, down 19 percent from 2019. In Q1 North America remained the biggest region accounting for almost 40 percent of worldwide revenues, followed by APAC, EMEA and Latin America.