Cisco still reigns supreme in the network infrastructure market after analyst firm IDC revealed the sector experienced 0.81 per cent stagnant (year-on-year) growth in 2018.
Increased shipment in high speed ports saw the enterprise and service provider Ethernet switch market grow 10 per cent in 2018, tracking at US$614 million in revenue, IDC said.
The drive and demand will continue to grow as enterprises keep spending on private and public cloud services.
In terms of vendors, Cisco continues to lead the Ethernet switch market, holding on to 65 per cent share followed by HPE Networks, which has 9.5 per cent market share.
Juniper Networks retained 3.8 per cent followed by Arista with 3.4 per cent, and white box manufacturers rounded out the rest with 2.6 per cent share in 2018.
Despite this global growth trend, the Australian router market suffered a 6.2 per cent year-on-year revenue decline at US$329.34 million, according to IDC’s APAC quarterly router tracker.
The analyst firm attributed the decline to the reduction in spending by service providers, as they face upgrading to 5G mobile technology.
In the router market, Cisco is still in front of its competitors with 71.6 per cent market share; Juniper holds 11.8 per cent; Nokia (7.2 per cent); Huawei (seven per cent) and Ericsson rounds out the top five with 1.4 per cent market share in the region.
The decline was felt in the wireless local area network (WLAN) Australian market, which fell 11.9 per cent in 2018 to US$186.92 million.
IDC said in the last quarter of 2018, 86 per cent of total units shipped were 802.11ac access points.
The decline was put down to low sales in the consumer and retail sector, as well as delays while enterprises waited for the new 802.11ax (WiFi 6) to make its entrance into the market.
In this corner of the market, Cisco held on to the top spot with 49.2 per cent share followed by Netgear (11.2 per cent); HPE (10.7 per cent); Riverbed (4.9 per cent) and D-Link (3.9 per cent).
“Growth achieved by the Ethernet Switch market was offset by the decline in the Router and Wireless LAN markets. IDC expects this stagnation to be temporary,” IDC A/NZ networking infrastructure analyst, Ahmar Karimullah, said. “Mobile networks upgrade to 5G and wireless LAN access points refresh to the 802.11ax standard will drive demand and once again, driving positive growth back to the networking infrastructure market.”
In March, Cisco customers using Small Business RV320 and RV325 who updated the online management interface for the dual gigabit WAN VPN routers in January were requested to update it again.
The networking vendor published 25 security alerts including for the two routers management interface as it found the patches issued in January were incomplete.
In its security advisories page, Cisco said that it still does not have a fix but it is working on it.
