Growth in Asia's router market declining

The Asia-Pacific router market is projected to see waning growth rates as it moves toward maturity in the next few years, according to Frost & Sullivan.

The research firm expects the market's growth rate of 17.1 percent in 2004 to decline and settle at 9.5 percent in 2011. Revenues however, will continue to increase to US$4.88 billion in 2011 from US$2.16 billion in 2004.

Service providers are the biggest consumers of routers in the region, followed by the enterprise sector, according to Frost & Sullivan.

"As much as 70 percent of the total market revenues for 2004 were from the services provider segment, while the remaining were derived from the enterprise, government and education and research segments," noted Teyew Sin Siew, head of telecoms research for Asia Pacific, Frost & Sullivan.

Overall, the research firm expects the growing data traffic in the mobile networks, especially 3G, and the rise in residential DSL (digital subscriber line) clients to drive the router market in the Asia Pacific region, with China projected to be the biggest contributor in terms of sales.

To stabilize revenue flow and speed up the growth process, Frost & Sullivan suggests that router equipment vendors in the region emphasize on customer demand for better QoS (quality of service), lower total cost of ownership, and improved service strategies and business models.