The Asia/Pacific networking market is facing challenges from the macroeconomic front as well as from competition in the market. Although demand from the market continues to grow, IDC's Asia/Pacific Quarterly Switch and Router Tracker® observes that vendors are increasing their stakes to get further ahead of their competition as they recognize that macroeconomic obstacles will dampen overall growth in market size, and to grow in today's economic climate, they will need to increase market share. Megatrends such as cloud computing, datacenter consolidation, and IPv6 migration, alongside other drivers such as branch office network upgrades, unified communication/IP telephony and, more recently, the launch of 3G networks in India and next-generation network (NGN) upgrades, will no doubt continue to drive demand in the market.

Technology Coverage and Data Segmentation

This tracker provides total market size and vendor share for the following technology areas and segmentations. Measurement for this tracker is in factory revenue, end-user revenue, and ports/units.

Technologies and subtechnologies:

• LAN switch
• Routers

Segmentations:

• Quarterly vertical segmentation for the switch and router market by vendor
• Vertical markets: Retail, manufacturing, services, finance, transportation, service providers, government, education, healthcare, power and energy, and others
• Quarterly company size segmentation for the switch and router market by vendor
• Company size: 1–19 employees, 20–249 employees, 250–499 employees, 500–999 employees, and 1,000+ employees

Geographic Scope

• Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (13 countries)

Forecast Coverage

Forecasts for this tracker are updated quarterly and include two years of historical data and five years of annual market projections. Forecasts are available at the regional and country levels. Examples of the segmentations being forecast in this tracker include:

• LAN switch (by layer, form factor, transmission technology, and customer segment)
• Router (by price band, customer segment, and deployment)

Delivery Schedule and Deliverables

This tracker is delivered on a quarterly basis with tools such as pivot tables. The delivery schedule for this tracker is as follows:

• Preliminary historical data: Week 8 after period closes
• Final release historical data: Week 9 after period closes
• Qualitative report: Week 12 after period closes
• Forecast data: Week 11 after period closes
• Company size and vertical segmentation: Week 11 after period closes