The players that dominated the EMEA enterprise networking market in 2016

In the first three quarters of 2016, vendor revenue on the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) enterprise networking market decreased by 2.4% year on year, according to detailed competitive data reports released by International Data Corporation (IDC). The three sub-markets covered — Ethernet switching, wireless LAN (WLAN), and routing — all exhibit distinctive market dynamics.

“In the first three quarters of 2016, the enterprise networking market in EMEA contracted slightly, but the positive signals from last two quarters support our expectations that annual market results could be close to flat,” says Peter Kosinar, senior research analyst at IDC.

Enterprise Ethernet switching regularly constitutes a clear majority of the market, followed by WLAN and routers. From vendor revenue growth perspective, Ethernet switching declined 5.4% year on year in the first three quarters of 2016, while WLAN and routers are up 6.6% and 1.5%, respectively. Compared to semiannual results, all sub-markets improved in Q316.

These findings are sourced from IDC’s EMEA Ethernet switch, WLAN and router trackers, which provide quarterly, country-level information on the performance of leading market players, enabling study of competitive dynamics across underlying technologies. The sections below highlight some key findings for EMEA enterprise networking sub-markets in the first three quarters of 2016.

Enterprise Ethernet switching: After a weak beginning, subsequent quarters are exhibiting improved year-on-year performance.

• The leading vendor, CISCO, experienced a challenging half-year in terms of absolute revenue, but saw some improvement in Q3. Second-place HPE slightly improved its market share and ranking from 2015. The two leading vendors claimed a combined 68.1% of the total market in the first three quarters of 2016.
• Huawei is the clear leader in terms of gaining market share in year-on-year comparisons.
• Contrary to general expectations, the year-on-year performance of the UK market has been better than that of the largest Western European markets. Despite this development, we expect sales inhibitors to have a stronger impact in the UK in the coming quarters.
• Combined 40GbE and 100GbE technologies recorded strong year-on-year revenue growth of 38%; similar growth is expected to continue in the coming quarters.

Enterprise routing: Huawei doubled revenue on a flat market

• The enterprise routing market is dominated by CISCO; in the last five quarters, the vendor’s market share hovered at around 75% of the total EMEA market.
• Huawei held the second-largest market share in first three quarters of 2016, while, in recent quarters, the share stabilized around 10%.
• In contrast to previous quarters, high-end products had strong standing in the market in Q316, while revenue from SOHO routers dropped compared to previous quarters.

Enterprise WLAN: On the way to recovery?

• The combined market share of leaders CISCO and HPE was around 59% in 2016, which is 3 percentage points less than in 2015.
• In recent quarters, Huawei posted strong performance on the EMEA WLAN market. In 2013, this vendor was not even visible on the WLAN landscape, while in the first three quarters of 2016, it captured 2.4% of the market.
• Western Europe continues to be the dominant region in EMEA for Enterprise WLAN products, accounting for almost three quarters of total regional revenue.
• Sales of 802.11ac access points is the obvious driver of the Enterprise WLAN market. In the first three quarters, this product category constituted almost 60% of total vendor revenue. At the same time, after several quarters of revenue fluctuations, Q316 marked the strongest quarter for 802.11ac access points since they started to ship.

The EMEA enterprise networking market has been volatile in recent quarters, with guarded positive expectations for Q416 and subsequent quarters. The multi-faceted sub-markets, including Ethernet switching, WLAN, and routing, are each going through intensive technology-driven transitions, which creates opportunity for ambitious market players to challenge current market leaders. The market stakeholders can use IDC’s detailed EMEA Ethernet switch, router, and WLAN trackers as an excellent knowledge base for navigating through the region’s dynamic and competitive enterprise networking landscape.