Cisco leads India's ethernet switch & router market with 67.7% share

2014 was one of the best years for the Indian networking market (LAN and WLAN included) with over 20 percent  growth year on year, according to IDC. The market research firm expects a similar pattern in CY 2015 as well on the back of government initiatives and organisations willing to invest in future technologies.

According to IDC’s APeJ Quarterly Switch and Router tracker, the Ethernet Switch market  clocked end-revenue of $124.0 million during Q1 2015, with a slight decrease quarter on quarter (-0.8 percent) but impressive growth year on year (15.1 percent).

The Router market stood at  a total of $69.4 million, declining 13.6 percent year on year.

Cisco retained its dominance in the switch and router market.  Revenue from the telcos and refresh business from well established traditional clientele remained the key for vendor’s growth. Apart from traditional verticals, education vertical provided a sustained demand to the market during Q1 that is further expected to grow with the start of new sessions.

According to IDC, organisations are increasingly taking interest in the third platform technologies to  leverage its benefits in workforce optimisation, supply chain, customer experience and efficient resource utilisation. On the same lines, higher enterprise spending coupled with 3G/4G upgrades/new rollouts and increasing broadband penetration is set to push growth further in CY 2015.

The IP-based security-surveillance market is also likely to take a faster route giving vendors, small or big, an opportunity to grow. Further, the SMBs are likely to offer similar growth to the market and the verticals, like any other traditional segment to benefit from mobility and network optimisation solutions.

Since Q1 2014, the WLAN market is increasing both quarter on quarter and year on year with the highest revenue coming in CY 2014.

The WLAN market in India clocked an 8.9 percent growth quarter on quarter and  37.1 percent year on year during Q1 2015, according to IDC’s Quarterly APeJ Wireless LAN tracker and registered $45.1 million as end-user revenue.

Though WLAN market in India continues to be driven by the traditional contributors like education and professional services, the increasing deployments of hotspots by the government and telcos to get new avenues of revenue streams are likely to contribute an additional stream  Q2 2015 onwards, said the market analyst firm.

“Education remained the most promising vertical with growth investments from new universities and colleges as well the old ones towards the upgrade/refresh.”

In CY 2015, NFV and SDN are likely to find more visibility, as several vendors and  customers from different verticals vie to consolidate their market position, hence resulting in more number of PoCs or even initial roll-outs in the coming quarters.

On the access side, the Education, Manufacturing and SMBs are likely to remain mainstream in the coming quarters as well. The growing space of e-tailers is promising  huge opportunities for the enterprise infrastructure market in India.

From the telco side, the investments from the service providers are likely to remain high given the competition, impending expiration dates of the spectrum and threats of new players.

Tech-savvy campuses, wi-fi enabled stations, broadband highways, wi-fi hotspots are the prospective segments in the direction of the digital infrastructure development and rollouts that will further push the demand for network infrastructure investment.