Infonetics Research released its 1G/10G/40G/100G Networking Ports market size and forecast report, which tracks 1 Gigabit, 10 Gigabit, 40 Gigabit, and 100 Gigabit optical and Ethernet ports on enterprise and service provider equipment.

ANALYST NOTES

"There is a lot of excitement these days around 100G and 100GE, and whether or how soon 100G prices will cause 40G sales to decline. The truth is that we are at the start of a very long period where 100G and 100GE will be the major port player from 2015 through 2030, with bare beginnings of just several hundreds of 100GE ports on service provider routers shipped to date, and a few inter-city 100G WDM routes deployed. Already street pricing looks very competitive, and with a lot of 100G technology development in motion--more focused than 40G--we expect 100G pricing to get to 2X 40G pricing in the 2013 timeframe, which should be the turning point for 100G versus 40G in the service provider market," notes Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier and data center networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.

Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research and co-author of the report, adds: "The market for 1G-and-higher enterprise ports took a bit of a breather in 2009 during the recession, but came back full force in 2010. The enterprise 40G Ethernet port segment will be one of the most interesting to watch going forward, with the first shipments expected in 2011 followed by rapid growth, driven by data center deployments."

1G/10G/40G/100G NETWORKING PORTS MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• The number of 1G, 10G, 40G, and 100G network ports shipped on service provider and enterprise equipment in 2010 jumped 43% over the previous year, to 184 million, and manufacturer revenue grew 26%, to over $33 billion
• Equipment manufacturer revenue from 1G, 10G, 40G, and 100G networking ports is forecast by Infonetics to grow to almost $52 billion in 2015, as enterprises and service providers continue to build out their network infrastructure to respond to growing levels of traffic
• In 2010, high-speed ports (10G, 40G, 100G) represented only 3% of all ports sold by manufacturers, but made up 43% of the revenue
• Higher-speed port technology is not only important for carrying the world's network traffic, but a critical source of revenue for equipment manufacturers

REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics' 1G, 10G, 40G, and 100G port report, co-authored by analysts Michael Howard, Matthias Machowinski, Andrew Schmitt, and Jeff Heynen, consolidates optical and Ethernet port data from Infonetics services that cover enterprise Ethernet switches, routers, and application delivery controllers, as well as service provider routers, multiservice ATM switches, CES (carrier Ethernet switches), optical gear (WDM and SONET/SDH), PON OLTs, MSAPs, IP DSLAMs, CMTSs, and enterprise (other communications equipment). The report provides worldwide and regional market size, forecasts through 2015, and in-depth analysis for ports, revenue, and revenue per port, with pivot tables that allow views of port data by segment and technology.

The report includes a Customer Wins tracker with new updates on activity by equipment manufacturers including Alcatel-Lucent, ARRIS, Atheros, Ciena, Cisco, Cyan, ECI Telecom, Ericsson, Gennum, Huawei, Ikanos, Juniper, NEC, Fujitsu, Occam, Orckit-Corrigent, Sigma, Technicolor, Tellabs, Zhone, and others.

Service providers noted in the Customer Wins tracker include 360networks, A1 Telekom Austria, Baldwin Telecom, China Unicom, Cox, Etisalat, France Telecom, NTT, StarHub, Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Portugal Telecom, Reliance, Shanghai Telecom, Sprint, Telefónica O2 UK, Verizon, and many others.

40G, 100G optical transceiver market will be dominated by in-house vendors

Network equipment manufacturers -- such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, Cisco, Huawei, and Infinera -- are supplying an increasing share of 40G long reach ports and will ship most of the 100G ports through 2014, posing a competitive challenge to component suppliers in the market. The reality of this market requires that optical component vendors measure twice and cut once when making investments in this area or face a negative ROI.

Alcatel-Lucent jumps to #2 in IP router market; carrier routers/switches up 20.5% in 2010

Alcatel-Lucent has been steadily taking IP router market share for the past 3 years, to the point that, even though they only play in the edge router segment, they are now #2 worldwide in the total IP edge and core router market. ALU had its best-ever quarter in IP edge routers, with revenue up 56% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2010, pushing them above Juniper, which also posted solid growth.

Ethernet switches and WLAN blow past pre-recession highs; enterprise routers disappoint

Wired and wireless Ethernet switching sales took a hit during the recession, but now they're back stronger than ever. The spring-back is partially due to pent-up demand and the need to upgrade networks to eliminate congestion. But another factor at play is the realization by many enterprises that building out their network coverage, including mobile access, improves communication among employees and access to IT applications, and that has a profound effect on productivity and competitiveness.

Expansion, virtualization, cloud services drive data center markets

2010 was a strong year for data center network equipment sales, due to a rebound from bare-bones 2009 spending levels and, more importantly, fundamental trends favoring investments in the data center, such as the explosion of content and traffic, use of virtualization, and increasingly, cloud-based services and architectures.