Dell'Oro: Sustained service provider router growth expected through 2027

400 Gbps-capable routers built on the newest generation of high-capacity ASICs offer the benefits of higher speeds per port with decreased energy consumption, thus reducing the total number of ports required and, in turn, the size of the chassis. The higher-speed per port also lowers the cost per bit per port. Combined with the reduced energy consumption and the smaller, rack space-saving format of the router, transitioning to 400 Gbps ports enables SPs to make more economically efficient investments and lower operating costs.

In the SP Core Router segment, we expect revenue to increase at a 4 percent CAGR from 2022 to 2027 and growth to be largely driven by the adoption of 400 Gbps technology.

The combined SP Edge Router and SP Aggregation Switch segment is expected to grow at a 1 percent CAGR, approaching $12 B in 2027. The dominant growth driver in the segment will remain the expansion of mobile backhaul networks to support the adoption of 5G radio access networks (RAN), followed by increasing residential broadband deployments.

We project a decline in the IP mobile backhaul market in China, with SPs shifting their investments to Core and Metro networks, and we expect increasing demand for SP Core Router products as a result.