Simar Singh
A report released by market research company International Data Corporation (IDC) reveals that the networking marketing is betting big on the government sector in the next few quarters due to the increased information and communications technology(ICT) interest from around the world to invest in India.
Government initiatives like Digital India, Smart Cities project, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna and UID have created valuable opportunities for the networking market, according to IDC.
With a 20 per cent year on year growth, the study states that FY 2014 was one of the best years for the networking market (LAN and WLAN included) and goes on to predict that a similar pattern is expected in FY 2015, riding on the wave of the government’s initiatives,organisations which are keen to invest in future technologies and the adoption of third party platforms by enterprises which will push the need for smart network solutions that will have the ability to sustain the growth of unstructured network traffic. IDC believes that these investments will seep into tier II and III markets as well.
IDC’s second quarter APeJ Quarterly Switch and Router tracker estimated that the ethernet switch market clocked an end-user revenue of $127.1 million. While this is a 2.5 per cent increase from the previous quarter, it indicates a 1.1 per cent year-on-year de-growth. However, this is quite marginal.
The router market for the second quarter was estimated to be $68.3 million, which is 4.3 per cent down from the previous quarter in terms of end user revenue but is the same as the previous fiscal year’s evaluation.
The report goes on to state that FY 2015 will most likely garner numbers from expansion from telcos and the banking, financial services and insurance(BFSI) industry. Further, upcoming verticals like e-commerce, healthcare and hospitality are expected to drive future investments.
For wireless, SMB (Server Message Block) remains to be the segment of focus for the majority of the vendors. The report claims that with over seven million SMBs in the country, requirements to make campuses tech-savvy, and increasing awareness in the verticals like manufacturing and utilities, the market has reasons to expect better performances in the coming quarters as well.
Also, given that the 2015-end is likely to be the expiration line for the spectrum, telcos are spending more in the networking to get both first-mover advantage and to fend off the rivals, both new and established ones.
