HP’s Ethernet switch revenue dropped 5% in the fourth quarter vs. the fourth quarter of 2011, while market leader Cisco gained 3.3%, according to the latest IDC research.
The biggest gainer in the quarter was Huawei, which almost doubled its revenue. Juniper had an 18% gain and Brocade was up 16% in a Layer 2-3 market that saw 5% growth overall in the fourth quarter, to $5.7 billion.
For all of 2011, the worldwide Layer 2-3 switch market totaled $21.134 billion, up slightly from $21.2 billion in 2010. Cisco’s revenue dropped 4.4% for the year while HP’s remained flat at .2%. Huawei gained 37%, Juniper 19% and Brocade 5% for the year, IDC found.
In terms of revenue share, Cisco once again topped the leader board with 64% share, though it was down 3% from 2010. HP has been flat since 2009 at 9%, and Alcatel-Lucent was third at 3%, essentially flat from 2010.
Juniper logged 2.3% share, up from 1.9% in 2010; Brocade was also at 2.3%, essentially flat from 2010. Huawei had a 1.8% share, up from 1.3% in 2010.
In ports, 10G Ethernet switch revenue increased 32.9% year over year, and 5.1% over the prior quarter, IDC found. Port shipments of 10G Ethernet grew to a record 2.8 million ports in the quarter, and for the full year, 10G Ethernet market revenue grew 26.5% over 2010, while port shipments more than doubled during the same period, according to the firm.
Growing rapidly is 40G Ethernet, which reached over 12,000 ports in the fourth quarter.
Gigabit Ethernet declined slightly from last year, from $3.7 billion to $3.64 billion in the fourth quarter. Fast Ethernet declined from $700 million in 2010’s fourth quarter to $553 million in fourth quarter 2011, a reduction of 21%.
