The worldwide Ethernet switch market recorded $12-billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024 (4Q24), a 13,3% year-over-year (YoY) increase.
For the full year 2024, however, the market declined 5,4%, finishing at $41,8-billion.
The total worldwide enterprise and service provider (SP) router market declined 4,5% y/y in 4Q24 and fell 19,1% YoY in 2024 to $13,3-billion. These findings are detailed in the latest editions of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Quarterly Ethernet Switch Tracker and IDC Quarterly Router Tracker.
Ethernet switch market highlights
The Ethernet switch market showed varying trends across the data centre and non-data centre segments. Revenues in the data centre (DC) portion of the market rose 32,1% YoY in 4Q24 and increased 15.1% for the full year. In the data centre segment of the market, revenues for 200/400 GbE switches rose 147,5% YoY in 4Q24 and rose 25,9% from the third to the fourth quarter of 2024, indicating strong interest in the highest-speed Ethernet switches.
ODM (original device manufacturer) Direct sales continue to be a growing part of the data centre segment, rising 67,5% YoY in 4Q24, and comprising 20.5% of the data centre portion of the Ethernet switch revenues in 4Q24.
The non-data centre (non-DC) segment, primarily used in enterprise campus and branch deployments, declined 1,2% YoY in 4Q24 and fell 20% for the full year.
However, this segment rose 9,6% from the third to the fourth quarters of 2024. The annualised decline was attributed to challenging comparisons with the quarter from a year earlier, which had historically high revenues driven by product backlog drawdown. 1GbE switch revenue which makes up more than half of the non-DC market segment’s revenues rose 2% in 4Q24 but fell 22,9% for the full year.
From a geographic perspective, in the US, the total Ethernet switch market rose 16,6% YoY in 4Q24, but declined 4,9% for the full year. In the US, the data centre Ethernet switch market increased 41.3% YoY in 4Q24 and rose 18,9% for the full year. In the combined Europe, Middle East & Africa region, total Ethernet switch market revenues increased 12,3% YoY in 4Q24, but declined 11,1% for the full year.
The region’s largest market – Germany – increased 8,5% YoY in 4Q24. In the Asia Pacific region, revenues rose 9,6% YoY in 4Q24 and were flat with a 0,4% decline for the full year.
In China, the market rose 8,9% YoY in 4Q24 and increased 4,5% for the full year.
“The continued buildout of data centre capacity by enterprises, service providers and hyperscalers to support infrastructure-hungry AI workloads is causing a renaissance in the data centre portion of the Ethernet switch market, fueled by the high-bandwidth and low-latency needs of the AI era,” says Brandon Butler, senior research manager: Enterprise Networks at IDC.
“Meanwhile, the non-data centre portion of the Ethernet switch market is in a reset as unusual supply chain and backlog drawdown issues from 2023 make for difficult annualised comparisons.
“Nonetheless, investment drivers in the campus and branch portion of the Ethernet switch market include increased capacity to support new Wi-Fi investments and vendors embedding AI capabilities into software management platforms to improve operations and performance.”
Router market highlights
The service provider segment of the router market, which includes both communications SPs and cloud SPs, made up 73,2% of the total router market in 4Q24 and declined 7,3% YoY in 4Q24 and fell 22,8% for the full year.
Revenues in the enterprise segment account for the remaining share of the market and rose 4,2% YoY in 4Q24 but declined 7% for the full year.
From a regional perspective, the combined service provider and enterprise router market in the Americas declined 4% YoY in 4Q24 and declined 24,6% for the full year; in the Asia Pacific region the market was off 5,9% YoY in 4Q24 and declined 18% for the full year. In Europe, Middle East & Africa, the market declined 3,1% YoY in 4Q24 and declined 11,9% YoY for the full year.
Vendor highlights
Cisco’s Ethernet switch revenues increased 3% YoY in 4Q24 but declined 22.4% for the full year, giving the company 35,9% market share for the full year. Cisco’s combined service provider and enterprise router revenue declined 10,9% YoY in 4Q24 and fell 28,2% for the full year.
Arista Networks Ethernet switch revenues 90.8% of which are in the DC segment increased 22,4% YoY in 4Q24 and rose 16,6% for the full year, giving the company 13% market share for the full year.
Huawei’s Ethernet total switch revenue increased 8,2% YoY in 4Q24 and rose 5,3% for the full year, giving the company a market share of 10,5% for the full year. The company’s combined SP and enterprise router revenue declined 8,9% YoY in 4Q24 and fell 19,1% for the full year, giving the company 29,22% market share to end the year.
HPE‘s Ethernet switch revenue 84,6% of which are in the non-DC segment declined 24,5% YoY in 4Q24 and declined 26,1% for the full year, giving the company 5,8% market share for the full year.
H3C’s Ethernet switch revenue rose 7,6% YoY in 4Q24 and declined 0,9% for the full year for a market share of 4,4% to 2024. In the combined service provider and enterprise routing market, H3C’s revenues decreased 7,5% YoY in 4Q24 and declined 5,3% for the full year, giving the company 2,3% market share in 2024.