The worldwide Ethernet switch market increased 22.0% year over year in Q4 2022 and 18.7% for the full year, said IDC. Revenues for the quarters were $10.3 billion and for the whole of 2022, $36.5 billion.
► Very high-speed and multi-gig switches lead the way
► Switches being deployed in data centres, campus and small networks
The market was equally strong in both the data centre and campus / branch segments. Higher-speed products are growing due to demand from hyperscalers and cloud providers. Revenues for 200/400 GbE switches rose more than 300% for the full year in 2022 – but this segment was flat in terms of sequential growth between 3Q22 to 4Q22.
The other strong area of performance was multi-gigabit, with sales of 2.5/5GbE switches up 122.1% YoY in 4Q22, and a 53.1% sequential growth from 3Q22 to 4Q22. These switches are more suited to being deployed closer to the edges of larger networks or in smaller deployments and SMBs.
These figures suggest strong investment is being made both at the core and the edges of the network to drive higher bandwidth and more flexible, dynamic layouts – and that investment is also being made in boosting the infrastructure of smaller networks.
In Western Europe, the market rose 25.3% annually in 4Q22 and increased 19.7% for the full year. The results are from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Ethernet Switch Tracker.
