Enterprise Routers Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023-2028)

The enterprise routers market is expected to register a CAGR of 6.2% over the forecast period. Enterprise routers are critical products that are used on a daily basis by any business or enterprise.They play an essential role in enterprises by connecting computer networks and the internet. Routers perform many functionalities, such as enterprise routing, which gives businesses a higher CPU capacity to control placement tasks. Furthermore, it allows companies to enhance their interface for both Ethernet and WAN circuits and run NetFlow/sFlow, MPLS, QoS, and other security features. It has functions to integrate deep packet inspection and WAN acceleration. Enterprise routers assist in maximizing productivity in the office, and an enterprise router's installation requires an engineer's skills and expertise.

Key Highlights

• Huawei's Global Industry Vision (GIV) predicts that by 2025, 85% of enterprise applications will be moved to the cloud, resulting in significant traffic growth at the egress of enterprise WANs. Traditional private lines offer several Mbit/s bandwidths but are prone to network congestion, so service experience cannot be guaranteed.
• Leveraging flexible and efficient application-based traffic steering, software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) is the best choice for enterprise WAN interconnection in the cloud era, as it can effectively ensure a positive customer service experience. However, when traditional enterprise routers intersect with SD-WAN, their forwarding performance decreases by about 80% on average.
• Enterprise routers improve workplace productivity, but their installation requires an engineer's expertise and training. Private connections have several Mbit/s throughput but are prone to network issues, so service quality cannot be guaranteed. The best answer is a software-defined wide area network (WAN), which makes use of flexible and effective application-based network management.
• Furthermore, service providers are rapidly modernizing their networks to satisfy enterprises' growing appetites for higher performance and superior user experiences. However, as service providers adopt virtualization and SDN capabilities, they are being held back by monitoring techniques that need to be revised. Enterprise cloud migrations and an increased reliance on software-as-a-service applications posed new challenges.This has driven service providers to adopt NFV, SDN, and cloud-native computing technologies.
• Furthermore, as work-from-home (WFH) becomes the latest trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, players and individual consumers can be seen occupying space to secure their various IT products for their employees. As a result, supplies of IT peripherals, including wireless routers, saw a sharp spike in demand. COVID-19 took a USD 1 billion bite out of the Ethernet switch and router market in the first quarter of 2020. Moreover, as everyone navigates through this unprecedented COVID-19 situation, Cisco aligns in solidarity with customers.

Enterprise Routers Market Trends

Wireless Connectivity is Expected to Hold Major Share

• An ordinary wireless router can only support approximately 10-20 users' access. In contrast, the enterprise wireless access router point allows over 50 or even hundreds of users' access, with the potential to send and receive signals. According to Cisco, the expected penetration of enterprise internet traffic via wireless fixed-line connections last year was 125988 petabytes per month. The forecast period will see an increase in average fixed broadband speed and average internet users due to an increase in high internet traffic and devices.
• For instance, the industry's first 5G-optimized wireless WAN edge router for enterprise branch deployments was released by Cradlepoint in May 2020. The Cradlepoint E3000 Series, according to the company, optimizes performance and investment protection and enables customers to deploy a wireless wide-area network (wireless WAN) using the latest LTE and Wi-Fi technology and seamlessly upgrade to 5G in the future. The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled an already growing demand for agile and rapidly deployable wireless WANs based on LTE for primary connectivity. Cradlepoint said in the release that the E3000 Series is intended to target this market directly.
• Generally, a wireless router's range of signal transmission can cover just dozens of meters. A wireless access router includes further distances, up to 100-300 meters, enabling users to roam freely in the network. Especially for enterprises, the office space is usually more substantial, and even some need to communicate across the buildings. The number of users accessing the network is so large that they need broader wireless router network coverage. Furthermore, the networking model of the wireless router is quite simple, with low flexibility. On the contrary, a wireless access point provides various modes, such as simplex AP, wireless client, wireless bridge, multi-point bridge, etc. It can be managed in a centralized manner with cooperation.
• Furthermore, M2M Connectivity supplies a broad range of wireless routers for 4G/3G as well as models for satellite and short-range RF (WLAN, Bluetooth). These Ethernet routers enable remote access and communication with equipment and assets such as remote PLCs, data loggers, and microcontrollers. With the increasing usage of such solutions by various end-users, the market is growing in this sector.
• Peripherals and sensors, which form the foundation of wireless connection networks, are significant power consumers. Different sensors have varying rates of energy consumption depending on the connection methods. Despite the availability of technologies like wireless networking, ultra-low-power processors, and tiny mobile sensors, efficient power management and optical power consumption are still needed in loT devices.

In the previous year, it was anticipated by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) that 90% of people living in developed countries would utilize the internet, compared to 57% of people in developing economies. 63% of people worldwide have access to the internet. Last year, there was an expected 27 percent Internet availability in the least developed nations.

North America is Expected to Hold Major Share

• North America is expected to hold a prominent share of the enterprise router market. Moreover, the region has a strong foothold among vendors of network routers. Some of them include Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell EMC, and Juniper Networks, Inc., which contribute to the market's growth. It is estimated that this year, in the United States, the market for network routers will grow to USD 11,950 million, which includes the market for Ethernet service edge routers, multiservice edge routers, service provider core routers, and internet exchange routers (source: Cisco), where the expectation of high market growth potentially moves towards internet exchange routers.
• The growing demand for hyperscale data centers is now driving growth for the network hardware industry in the United States. In the last few years, hyperscale cloud providers have driven up demand, which has led to a record 303 megawatts (MW) of absorption in the seven main US data center markets. This will make more people want high-speed IP traffic, which will make more people want enterprise routers.Furthermore, Cisco estimated that the IP traffic growth in North America would increase to 108 exabytes/month this year, showing a 21% CAGR, which is three-times growth. This significantly caters to the demand for enterprise routers during the forecast period.
• Moreover, according to Cisco, 46% of network devices will be machine-to-machine, or IoT, by 2020, making them vulnerable to attacks. To fully realize the potential of these connected devices, industries must be equipped with flexible WANs capable of meeting future network demands. Also, new technologies like cloud networking, SaaS-based applications, network analytics, DevOps, and virtualization have made users and businesses in North America more likely to buy enterprise routers.
• However, security and privacy concerns are restraints on the market. According to the study, five out of every six routers in the United States are running out-of-date firmware with exploitable security vulnerabilities, which hinders market growth globally.
• In a situation where many employees were working from home due to a COVID-19 pandemic or accessed wi-fi networks that operated at enterprise-level security, devices such as routers could be hacked to plant a range of malware into handheld devices used by employees. Subex has been keeping track of cyberattack trends and malware activity that can be linked to the outbreak, which has spread to 62 cities, through its honeypot network, which is a fake computer system that hackers use to catch other hackers.

Enterprise Routers Market Competitor Analysis

The enterprise router market is fragmented as the global players invest in R&D for the latest innovations in the product for several small to medium-sized companies. Key players are Cisco Systems, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, etc. The companies operating in the market continuously strive to launch new solutions to help service providers achieve a holistic approach to infrastructure transformation and gain new orders in that course for strategic aim.

• March 2022 - The IRG7440 5G Router & Gateway from Perle Systems, a manufacturer of networking hardware, has been approved for use internationally. IoT/M2M network access applications like IP video surveillance systems, digital signage, smart lockers, or processing IoT data at the edge by connecting industrial machinery, remote data loggers, or sensing devices are all excellent candidates for the IRG7440 Router.

Additional benefits of purchasing the report:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support

This product will be delivered within 2 business days.