Western European Router Market Competitive Analysis, 2009

This IDC study examines the Western European router market in 2008 compared with 2008 and analyzes the major segments and broad trends in the market. Included in the review are figures for the Western European market size and market share of router vendors.

High-end, midrange, low-end, SOHO, and residential router shipments and revenue are broken out by vendor in 2008. In addition to Western European revenue and shipment figures, the study breaks out market share by country. Countries included are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

"The Western European enterprise router market is showing the first effects of the economic crisis in terms of revenue and shipment declines, primarily in the enterprise and residential router segments. Sale cycles are becoming longer and price competition tends to be more aggressive than before in Western Europe. Companies are cutting their IT budgets and postponing investments or pushing for the best deal. Consequently, vendors need to develop cost-effective channel strategies because margins are likely to be constrained. Furthermore, vendors need to focus on developing 'green' devices, which enables companies to reduce operational costs and meet governmental regulations. Besides that, vendors need to continue to enhance product features such as security and quality of service to provide better virtual private network and voice over Internet technologies, and gain competitive advantage," said Sylvia Wnsche, research analyst, European Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, IDC.