New Q2 data from Synergy Research Group shows that service provider spend on routers and carrier Ethernet hit an all-time high of $3.5 billion. Cisco remains the dominant vendor in the market but its share of quarterly revenue hit an all-time low of 41%. Cisco revenues were almost unchanged from the previous quarter but were down 4% year-over-year. Meanwhile its three main rivals, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, and Juniper, all saw strong revenue growth on both a sequential and year-over-year basis.

Q2 service provider router revenues grew 9% year-over-year and were up 17% from the previous quarter – Q1 having experienced the normal cyclical low. On a rolling annual basis the market grew by 5%. Core routers accounted for 19% of Q4 revenues, while edge routers accounted for 66% and Ethernet access-aggregation devices 15%. North America remained the biggest region accounting for 36% of worldwide revenues, but revenues in the region declined 15% year-over-year while EMEA revenues grew strongly and APAC revenues leapt by 40% to reach record levels.

“While the overall trend in Cisco’s market share has been a steady decline, Q2 was surprisingly weak after a relatively strong first quarter,” said Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder and chief analyst. “It continues to do well in the largest segment, Ethernet services edge, but has been hit hard particularly in the core router and multi-services edge segments. With NFV starting to shake up the SP routing market I expect to see further shifts in market share over the next few quarters.”

This article was originally posted “Report: SP Routing Market At An All-Time High While Cisco Share Drops” from Cloud Strategy Magazine.