Like other sectors of the tech industry, the global service provider router market showed continuing recovery in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to research company Dell’Oro Group.
In a report issued Feb. 22, Dell’Oro said the sales of routers for service providers jumped 15 percent over the third quarter, to $2 billion. It was the largest sequential revenue increase in the space in more than two years. Dell’Oro said sales had declined in four of the previous five quarters.
The upward trend should continue into 2010, according to Dell’Oro analyst Shin Umeda.
“The good news is that router manufacturers saw their customers loosening purse strings during the fourth quarter, and that lends confidence for market recovery in 2010,” Umeda said in a statement. “With the worst of the economic downturn behind us, we expect that service providers will start more network projects resulting in meaningful market growth this year.”
The top five router vendors saw double-digit sequential revenue growth in the fourth quarter, with market leader Cisco Systems gaining 11 percent in revenue.
However, Ericsson, No. 5 in the market, had the largest gains, with a 39 percent hike in revenue.
Juniper Networks and Alcatel-Lucent-Nos. 2 and 3 in market share-each had revenue growth of 17 percent.
The fourth-largest vendor, Huawei, saw revenues rise 22 percent.
