Technology market research firm Infonetics Research has reported that global sales of enterprise routers, which provide connectivity between networks and to the internet, are down 3 percent for the full-year 2014, following a 6 percent increase the year prior.
Infonetics? fourth quarter 2014 and year-end enterprise routers market share, size and forecasts report tracked high-end, mid-range, branch office, and low-end/SOHO router revenue and ports.
?After a strong 2013, enterprise router sales fell negative in 2014, dragged by a challenging capex environment at service providers in North America and Europe,? said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research, now part of IHS.
?High-end routers continue to do well, driven by new data center deployments and large enterprise headquarters upgrades, but the mid-range and branch office segments both declined due to a focus on cost reduction and shifting preferences to low-end routers,? Machowinski said.
Enterprise router market highlights
? Globally, enterprise router revenue totaled $974 million in 4Q14, a 4 percent increase sequentially, but a 3 percent decline from the year-ago 4thquarter
? In 4Q14, revenue growth was undermined by average selling price (ASP) declines in the branch and mid-range categories
? Asia Pacific was once again the top-performing region for enterprise routers, with China in typical fashion ending the year with a bang and Japan returning to growth
? The top enterprise router vendors, based on global 2014 revenue, are Cisco in first place, HP in second and Brocade in third
? ZTE?s enterprise router sales more than tripled in 2014 as preferences in China shifted to local vendors; Huawei also ended the year on a high note thanks to end-of-year buying in China
? Long term, enterprise routers could face downward pressure from their software-only cousins, virtual routers, which will be attractive to service providers as a means to reduce CPE costs and deploy new services quickly
