Network equipment (Global Market)

• Optical Transport Network (OTN)
• Equipment for LTE networks
• IP Networking Equipment (Global Market)
• Ethernet LAN Switches (Global Market)
• Wireless Networking Equipment (WLAN) - Global Market
• Mobile Network Infrastructure (Global Market)

2024: Global LAN Hardware and Software Market Size Reaches $94.51 Billion

In 2024, expenditures on the global market for equipment and software for local networks amounted to $94.51 billion. More than a third of global costs came from the North American region. This is stated in the review of Grand View Research, which TAdviser got acquainted with in mid-July 2025.

One of the key drivers of the analytics industry is the rapid increase in the volume of information generated. Enterprises, government organizations, and educational institutions around the world are facing data traffic growth as video conferencing and cloud application platforms evolve, and demanding workloads are maintained. Against this background, companies are forced to upgrade their local infrastructure by deploying high-bandwidth Ethernet networks, including 10/25/40/100GbE.

The expansion of the market is also facilitated by continued digitalization, which is accompanied by the active development of complex network ecosystems. Changing the traffic structure and the need for online support for a huge number of users increase the requirements for network environments. Another stimulating factor is the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence. Generative services create a high load on network channels, which contributes to the creation of infrastructures with low latency and high data transfer rates.

Businesses are in the digital transformation phase, seeking to improve operational efficiency, customer experience and competitiveness. Companies are upgrading their IT infrastructure, including local area networks, to adopt advanced technologies such as cloud computing, big data analytics and AI, the study notes.

The additional need to create a fault-tolerant infrastructure of local networks with high bandwidth is created by the active introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) in industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, logistics and smart cities. All kinds of IoT devices generate huge amounts of information that require reliable networks to transmit.

Analysts segment the market into hardware solutions (switches, routers, cables and connectors, servers and storage devices), software, and services. In 2024, the first of these areas provided the largest share of revenue - 57.06%. But the highest growth rates are observed in the field of software . In particular, the software-defined network (SDN) sector is rapidly developing: this concept assumes that network infrastructure management is carried out using software solutions separated from the physical layer.

Wired, wireless and hybrid local area networks are distinguished by the type of infrastructures. In 2024, more than half of the costs - 55.85% - fell on the wired segment. The dominance of such solutions is primarily due to their reliability, high information transfer rate and security. Geographically, North America leads with a 36.02% share. Globally, the major industry players are:

• Ubiquiti;
• Cisco Systems;
• Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Development;
• Extreme Networks;
• Huawei Technologies;
• D-Link;
• Netgear;
• Fortinet;
• Nokia;
• Primus Cable.

Analysts at Grand View Research believe that in the future, the CAGR in the market under consideration will be 4.6%. As a result, in 2025, the cost of equipment and software for local networks, according to the authors of the report, will reach $97.16 billion, and by 2033 will rise to $139.21 billion.^[1]

2020: Market Leaders in Network Equipment for Companies

In 2020, Cisco and Huawei continued to dominate the corporate networking equipment market, although the gap between the two has narrowed slightly. In general, sales of such devices on a global scale decreased by 2%, to $48.5 billion. This is evidenced by data from the research company Dell'Oro Group.

The decline was mainly driven by changes in data center operations, analysts said. Corporate spending has risen on both routers and security, and in the case of wireless LANs, it has remained the same. The growth in routers and security was actually driven by subscription-based software and products (SD-WAN, virtual security, and SaaS security ). Even in the WLAN segment, there was an increase in the number of controllers and licenses. Meanwhile, costs for hardware products (routers, physical firewall, wireless LAN access points, and Ethernet switches) have decreased.

Network Equipment Sales Globally Reduced by 2%

The decline in the corporate network equipment market as a whole was more noticeable in the first half of the year. However, starting in the third quarter of 2020, spending on network equipment began to recover as businesses showed confidence to invest in the future. The researchers calculated that enterprises increased their spending on network equipment by about $400 million in the second half of 2020 (compared to the second half of 2019). About 70% of them were allocated to a wireless local area network.

Performance indicators of five leading network equipment suppliers

Huawei and Cisco accounted for about 50% of the corporate network equipment market in 2020. They turned out to be the only two suppliers with a revenue share of more than 10%.

Cisco remained the market leader in all segments. However, in 2020, the company faced a loss of revenue share. Huawei managed to increase its share of revenue by 1 percentage point, reaching 10% by the end of 2020. Dell'Oro Group analyst Sameh Bujelbene noted in the report that the differences in direction between the two suppliers were due to Cisco's "high exposure to hardware and low reliance on China."

Leading Network Equipment Providers for Companies

Fortinet, meanwhile, moved up to fifth place, edging out H3C. Fortinet has a high degree of market impact for security solutions, while H3C has a high degree of market impact for switching. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Aruba was still third in the market with a sustained 5% annualized revenue share. Palo Alto Networks also maintained its fourth position and stable 4% revenue share in 2020. Juniper, Check Point and Symantec/Blue Coat have completed the ranking, with each supplier having a stable 2% revenue share in both 2019 and 2020.

Network Equipment Market Forecast

Dell'Oro analysts are optimistic about the outlook for 2021 and forecast a 5% growth in the entire enterprise network equipment market. This optimism is driven by improved macroeconomic conditions and business confidence, as well as continued government stimulus. In addition, according to analysts at Dell'Oro, their interviews with end users, system integrators and value added resellers (VAR) showed that if part of the workforce returns to work by the end of 2021, spending on network infrastructure in preparation for such development should begin several months in advance, possibly as early as the second or third quarter of 2021^[2]

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