Metro Ethernet and FTTH Drive
China's Ethernet Switch Market in 1H08 September 12,
2008
China's Ethernet switch market maintained
stable development and reached 4.49 billion Yuan in 1H 2008, up 5.8%YOY.
Telecom operators, despite their recent
restructuring,
accelerated their Metro Ethernet network construction with FTTH and
high-speed capabilities. Such activities drove high to mid-range switches.
In the afterglow
of the Beijing Olympics, CCID Consulting expects switch growth to resume in
3Q08 and 1Q09. FTTH construction will drive Metro Ethernet, a major focus of
vendors, which in turn will drive midrange to high-end switches. The
competition in Metro Ethernet will heat up in 2H08.
China's industries and government also helped maintain switch market
momentum. Financial services, government, and energy sectors increased their
IT applications, thereby driving switch purchases. China's natural disasters
in the 1H08, such as the Sichuan earthquake and winter snowstorm, spurred
the use of emergency communications, video conferencing, and monitoring by
government and industry. Those events further drove network construction,
and therefore network equipment purchases.
source: ccid
consulting, July 2008
Cisco and H3C
have the largest market shares.
For enterprise
customers, Cisco leads, while
H3C maintains a strong second. For telecom
operators, Huawei and
Juniper are the major competitors. This year in China,
Juniper launched its EX series high performance switching products,
increasing pressure on vendors in the high-end switch market, such as Cisco
in telecom operators. For Metro Ethernet, Huawei,
Nortel and
FiberHome have
all devised their own strategies to target and compete.
Competition in the midrange and low-end switches is also heating up. Major vendors are China's second-tier
ones such as FiberHome, ZTE,
Rujie Networks and
Digital China. They are all
increasing their investments in the hope of a market breakthrough.
Product attributes in China.
Switch product characteristics for the year in China include high capacity,
high performance and layer 2/3 functionality (integrated routing features).
10 Gigabit switches have become the mainstream in China.
For China's enterprises, telecom, data center and network storage drive the
application for high-end switches. Network and carrier-grade Metro Ethernet
construction drive higher speed broadband applications, such as IPTV. IEEE's
10 Gigabit Ethernet switch standard, delivered in May 2007, will help drive
the trend to larger capacities and forwarding rates.
There will be increasing trends towards wireless (WLAN) and security. WLAN
has become more mature and embraced in China. China Telecom has made
large-scale purchases in WLAN equipment this past May. WLAN provides
relatively convenient and cost effective installation and users like the
flexible access WLAN provides. With rapid adoption of WLAN, so will WLAN-integrated
Ethernet switches. Finally, networking security continues to grow in
importance, so Ethernet switches with more security features would be well
positioned in China's markets.
For more information
Please
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other China-related data, information and products.
Unless otherwise specified,
all information provided is sourced from CCID Consulting.
