Global revenue for data center network equipment fell to $2.2 billion— a 6% quarterly decrease but up a sharp 17% year-to-year– in 1Q 2012, according to Infonetics Research’s latest “Data Center Network Equipment” report. As defined in the report the category includes data center Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers and WAN optimization appliances.
“The data center equipment market was down sequentially, but is up nicely from the year-ago first quarter. For the remainder of 2012 and into 2013, we expect growth to be choppy as service providers and data center operators are at different stages in their data center upgrades and some are beginning to wind down their current investment cycle,” noted Sam Barnett, directing analyst for data center and cloud at Infonetics.
Report highlights include:
- WAN optimization appliances saw the steepest revenue decline, down 20% from the previous quarter
- Cisco maintains a commanding lead in the overall data center network equipment market, followed by F5 and HP, who remain in a neck-and-neck battle for 2nd
- Asia Pacific posted the strongest sequential gain in 1Q12 for overall data center network equipment revenue, while North America still accounts for nearly half the market
- Renewed fears of an economic meltdown in the EU community are pressuring investments; EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) was down 10% quarter over quarter and had the worst year-over-year showing of all regions
