Price pressure put the squeeze on the worldwide enterprise router market in 2005, forcing overall revenue down 3% to $3.3 billion from 2004's $3.4 billion, but global demand for routers remains strong, evidenced by the 14% year-over-year increase in unit shipments, according to Infonetics Research's latest Enterprise Routers report.
"Overall the enterprise router market had a good year," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research. "Though revenue didn't quite keep pace with unit shipments, demand is solid. The transition from standard to secure routers is speeding up, with secure router revenue skyrocketing and unit shipments practically tripling in the last year. The underlying fundamentals of the market are strong because companies continue to upgrade their networks and look for platforms that integrate security features, QoS, and support for VoIP."
Market Highlights
Though revenue was down a bit for the year, it was up for the quarter:
-worldwide enterprise router revenue increased 6% between 3Q05 and 4Q05, to $910 million.
-Worldwide secure router revenue jumped 121% between 2004 and 2005, from $363 million to over $803 million, and unit shipments nearly tripled.
-In 2005, Cisco lead the enterprise router market by a wide margin, capturing 81% of worldwide revenue share and 71% unit share.
-Huawei remains in second place for secure router unit shipment and revenue market share.
-Nortel maintains third position for worldwide enterprise router revenue share, a position it has held for six of the last eight quarters.
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