AI drives Ethernet switch buying, IDC reports

“The non-datacenter segment of the Ethernet switch market grew 25.2%, driven by improved component availability, enabling vendors to recognize revenues from fulfilling backlogged product orders, leading to high growth rates,” Butler said. New product orders slowed in the fourth quarter as customers focused on implementing products, according to IDC.

“In the non-datacenter portion, Ethernet switch vendors are embedding AI capabilities in software management platforms to improve operations. Connectivity in general, and Ethernet switching in particular, are playing an increasingly critical role in supporting the era of AI everywhere,” said Vijay Bhagavath, IDC research vice president, cloud and data center networks, in an IDC statement.

Wi-Fi 6E adoption on the rise

On the wireless front, IDC is also reporting a shift in 2023 buying trends as products became available and backlogged orders were fulfilled, leading to a decline in the fourth quarter.

“In 2023, the enterprise WLAN market grew 7.6% to reach $10.8 billion, but it was a tale of two halves: in the first half of 2023, enterprise WLAN revenues rose 43.3% compared to the first half of 2022, driven by vendors shipping backlogged products,” IDC’s Butler says. “In the second half of the year, market revenues declined 16.6% compared to the same period a year earlier when new product orders slowed.”

Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 both hold promise for enterprises: Wi-Fi 6E can enable high data transmission speeds, higher capacity, and low latency; and Wi-Fi 7 is said to be able to support new uses cases including high-capacity applications such as augmented or virtual reality as well as video streaming.

“Wi-Fi remains a critically important technology for organizations across the globe, and with the Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 standards enabling Wi-Fi to use the 6 GHz band, a range of enhanced use cases are being supported,” Butler said. “Wi-Fi 6E access points grew to make up just under a quarter (23%) of enterprise-dependent AP sales in the fourth quarter of 2023, indicating the continued rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6E technology.”