The Asia/Pacific LAN Market - Seeing Red For The First Time In
Q298, Reports IDC - PRNewswire, 08:15 a.m. Sep 28, 1998 Eastern
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire/ --
According to a recent report from market research firm
International Data Corporation, Asia's local area networks
(LAN) markets have finally felt the impact from the region's
economic troubles.
"Asia's LAN markets have been relatively safe from the
currency crisis," said Sandra Ng, Manager of IDC
Asia/Pacific's Networking Products Research, "but it seems
the impact has finally hit in the second quarter." The IDC
report found an overall 12.6 percent decline in revenue for
LAN markets in Asia (excluding Japan) in the second quarter
of 1998 when compared to the same quarter last year.
Compared to the first quarter of the year, the second quarter
saw a decline of 10.1 percent in revenue terms.
China Shows Strength
With the exception of China, Australia and India, all other
markets showed negative quarter-on-quarter growth rates.
China remained the largest LAN market in the Asia/Pacific
region (excluding Japan) with close to 30 percent share of the
region's LAN markets. "This is equivalent to a quarter-on-
quarter growth of close to 50 percent in revenue terms.
China's IT and telecom infrastructure continues to provide
LAN vendors with growth opportunities," said Ng. Australia
and India LAN markets also managed to stave off significant
declines as these markets continued to receive attention from
LAN vendors because of the economic stability of these
countries. For the first time, Taiwan overtook Korea to
become the third largest LAN market in the region. This was
due to a drastic decline of more than 20 percent in the past two
quarters for the Korean LAN market and growing LAN
connectivity among small and medium-sized organizations in
Taiwan.
LAN Switches are a Bright Spot
In terms of product categories, all product segments including
hub, NIC, router and LAN switch showed negative growth
rates on a sequential basis. However, LAN switch managed to
register a positive quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 9.5
percent in revenue terms due to declining price points and
increasing sophisticated demand of users.
Product share of fixed port unmanaged hubs -- in percentage
terms -- grew in the past two quarters due to increasing budget
constraints as a result of the economic crisis. Similarly, fixed
port switches have grown in popularity given the availability
of fewer large projects in the region. In the NIC segment,
demand for PC cards grew strongly given the increasing
popularity of portable PCs and increasing LAN and remote
connectivity requirements. In the router category, base low
tier 3 -- US$3,001 to US$8,000 -- remained the most popular
models in the region.
ATM and Gigabit Ethernet Hang Tough
In terms of transmission technology, all segments except
ATM and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) showed negative sequential
growth rates. The continuing demand for ATM was due to the
implementation of critical infrastructure-related projects in the
region. As for GbE, strong vendor promotion and a small
base resulted in the high positive growth in percentage terms.
Fast Ethernet continued to grow rapidly in technology share
terms, mainly at the expense of its Ethernet counterpart.
Technology share of Token Ring also grew due mainly to
IBM's success in some markets and Olicom's aggressive push
since its entry in 1997.
Top vendors in the region in Q298 in revenue terms were
Cisco, 3Com, IBM, Bay Networks, Cabletron/Digital and
Intel.
The findings stem from IDC's Asia/Pacific Local Area
Networks research. For more information on this product or
to purchase any of IDC's Asia/Pacific offerings, please
contact Lisa Cosmas at 650-962-6407, by e-mail at
lcosmas@idc.com or Lisa Bloom at 508-935-4236, by e-mail
at lbloom@idc.com.
IDC Asia/Pacific is a subsidiary of U.S. market research firm
International Data Corporation. Data includes aggregate
shipments from IDC offices in Australia, New Zealand,
Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, India and the 'Rest of
Asia/Pacific' (ROAP).
About IDC
Headquartered in Framingham, Mass., International Data
Corporation provides IT market research and consulting to
more than 3,900 high-technology customers around the
world. With a global network of 375 analysts in more than 40
countries, IDC is the industry's most comprehensive resource
on worldwide IT markets, products, vendors, and
geographies.
IDC's World Wide Web site ( idc.com ) contains
additional company information and recent news releases, and
offers full-text searching of recent research.
IDC is a division of International Data Group, the world's
leading IT media, research and exposition company
All product and company names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective holders. SOURCE
International Data Corporation
Copyright 1998, PR Newswire
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