India Networking Market Resurgent in Q2 2017

The Ethernet switch market in India witnessed a significant year-on-year (YoY) growth of 22.8 percent in Q2 2017 and stood at USD 135.5 million (by vendor revenue) according to IDC. Telecommunications, BFSI, professional services, government, and education continued to be the key contributors in Q2 2017. Government initiatives such as Smart Cities, Digital India, Make in India would drive incremental investments for the Ethernet switch segment in the Indian market. Cisco continued its dominance in the Ethernet switch market due to increased spending from telecommunications and banking verticals in Q2 2017, followed by HPE and Juniper. Vendors such as Juniper, Nokia, ODM, etc. witnessed triple-digit growth in Q2 2017.

The router market in India witnessed a YoY growth of 26.9 percent in Q2 2017 and stood at USD 87.1 million (by vendor revenue). Telecommunications, professional services and government continued to be the key contributors in Q2 2017. Telecommunication players invest heavily on 4G and VoLTE roll-outs to remain competitive in this space. Very large orders are expected from PSU telecommunication players in next couple of quarters. Cisco continued to lead the router market in Q2 2017, due to significant uptake from telecommunication players. Nokia emerged as the second-best vendor due to couple of multimillion dollar deals in the telecommunication vertical and smart city projects in Q2 2017.

The WLAN market in India stood at USD 43.1 million (by vendor revenue) in Q2 2017 or a decline of 8 percent compared to Q2 2016 according to IDC’s latest Asia/Pacific Quarterly WLAN Tracker, Q2 2017. The gateway router segment witnessed a significant drop in Q2 2017 due to GST implementation. Majority of the partners slow-down their stocking of gateway routers as they are uncertain about the taxation policies/rates. The access point category witnessed significant growth in Q2 2017 due to the uptake from the education and government sector. Cisco displaced D-Link and emerged as the market leader with a 27.5 percent market share in Q2 2017. HPE witnessed a double-digit YoY growth in Q2 2017 due to significant uptake from the government and education sector.