Campus switch market to grow to $100B in 2021-2026

According to a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries, more than $100B will be spent on campus switches over the next five years. Multi-gigabit switches (2.5/5/10 Gbps) are expected to comprise nearly 20 percent of the sales by 2026.

“When the pandemic first hit the market and spurred the work-from-home phenomenon, many people thought that campus switch sales might collapse and never recover. Yet our initial forecast issued at the beginning of the pandemic portrayed a more optimistic view of the market and projected that sales should go back to growth and eclipse their pre-pandemic level in 2022. The pace of recovery, however, has exceeded our expectations,” said Sameh Boujelbene, Senior Director at Dell’Oro Group. “Although the current surge in market demand was partially propelled by some short-term drivers, such as pent-up demand from 2020, orders pulled in from future quarters due to supply challenges, and strong government spending and stimulus around the world, we believe some fundamental growth drivers are here to stay.

Our interviews with various system and component vendors, as well as end-users, revealed that digital transformation initiatives have been accelerated by the pandemic, spurring new network requirements and putting pressure on IT managers to upgrade their networks. We believe that digital transformation is a multi-year journey that will benefit the campus switch market for many years to come and currently project sales to exceed $20B by 2026,” added Boujelbene.

Additional highlights from the Ethernet Switch – Campus 5-Year Forecast Report:

• The accelerated ramp of Wi-Fi 6 and the anticipated introduction of Wi-Fi 7 WLAN Access Points will fuel the need for 2.5 Gbps, 5 Gbps and even 10 Gbps switch ports.
• The introduction of new software features and Artificial Intelligence capabilities are expected to increase over our forecast horizon.
• Interest in Network-As-a-Service (NaaS) offerings is expected to rise but adoption may take time.

CT Bureau