Cisco, D-Link lead as Indian networking market sees mixed fortunes

A significant increase in the uptake of L3 and ADC switches helped bolster the Indian networking market in Q4, with the overall market recording 7.4% year on year growth, and Ethernet switch revenue up 21%.

IDC says that Ethernet switch growth took the market to US$131.2 million and helped counteract a 4% decline in router revenues, which dropped to US$69.2 million.

IDC says the high uptake of L3 and ADC switches came from both the enterprise and service provider segments. Investments in the government, education, telecom, professional services and BFSI were key growth drivers this quarter, the analyst firm notes.

The company says increased spending from the enterprise segment due to technology refreshes drove the overall Lan market in Q4 2016, with Cisco dominating the market with 65.7% share.

Huawei took out 5.9% LAN market share, with Hewlett Packard Enterprise third with 5.3%. Juniper and Nokia rounded out the top five, with 5.2% and 3.3% share, respectively.

Outside of the top five, IDC says Avaya posted significant growth in the quarter due to increased investments in the enterprise space.

IDC says the evolving network environment and the huge amounts of data available are driving adoption of advanced analytics into the mainstream.

"This will enable efficient network management for improved performance," IDC says.

The company says 2016 also saw increased uptake of SDN deployments and NFV POCs.

IDC is forecasting single digit compound annual growth rates for the LAN market through 2016 to 2021, and says government, education and BFSI are expected to emerge as promising segments.

Going wireless

The WLAN space saw a decline of 5.8%, to US$46.2 million in vendor revenue, in Q4 as demonetisation on the consumer segment impacted.  The enterprise segment, however, saw 4% growth quarter on quarter, while demand for WLAN at outdoor locations increased by almost 9% year on year.

IDC says education, professional services and telecom  were the major contributing verticals in Q4. The company says demand for Wi-Fi hotspots in public spaces and increased adoption of Wi-Fi by education institutes will fuel growth in the coming quarters.

"Technology upgrades to 802.11ac to support higher bandwidth requirements will also follow a growing trend.

D-Link continues to hold the number one spot when it comes to WLAN market share, with 29.5%, thanks to increased demand in the enterprise segment.

However, the field between the top five is much closer for WLAN, with Cisco just eight percentage points behind at 21.2%. TP-Link is third with 14.1% market share while Netgear has 9.2% share and Hewlett Packard Enterprise takes fifth place with 8.7%.

Niharika Kumar, IDC India senior networking analyst, says "The network infrastructure in India will certainly upgrade to support the growing demand which has been triggered by the digitisation wave. "With the increasing number of connected devices and the technology upgrades happening, the demand for efficient, reliable, smart and secure networks is taking the front foot across the segments.

Like the LAN market, WLAN is expected to grow in the single digits in terms of CAGR to 2021, with the company noting that demand for WLAN in the future will be accompanied by the growing emphasis on the internet of things and smart devices and workplaces.