More than $100-billion will be spent on campus switches over the next five years, according to a report from Dell’Oro.
Multi-gigabit switches (2,5/5/10 Gbps) are expected to comprise nearly 20% of the sales by 2026.
“When the pandemic first hit the market and spurred the work-from-home phenomenon, many people thought that campus switch sales might collapse and never recover. Yet our initial forecast issued at the beginning of the pandemic portrayed a more optimistic view of the market and projected that sales should go back to growth and eclipse their pre-pandemic level in 2022. The pace of recovery, however, has exceeded our expectations,” says Sameh Boujelbene, senior director at Dell’Oro Group.
“Although the current surge in market demand was partially propelled by some short-term drivers, such as pent-up demand from 2020, orders pulled in from future quarters due to supply challenges, and strong government spending and stimulus around the world, we believe some fundamental growth drivers are here to stay.
“Our interviews with various system and component vendors, as well as end-users, revealed that digital transformation initiatives have been accelerated by the pandemic, spurring new network requirements and putting pressure on IT managers to upgrade their networks. We believe that digital transformation is a multi-year journey that will benefit the campus switch market for many years to come and currently project sales to exceed $20-billion by 2026.”
The Ethernet Switch – Campus 5-Year Forecast Report also found that the accelerated ramp of WiFi 6 and the anticipated introduction of WiFi 7 WLAN Access Points will fuel the need for 2,5Gbps, 5Gbps and even 10Gbps switch ports.
The introduction of new software features and artificial intelligence capabilities are expected to increase over our forecast horizon.
And, although interest in network-as-a-service (NaaS) offerings is expected to rise, adoption may take time.