New numbers from Infonetics Research show that sales of telecom and datacom equipment and software came to $183 billion last year, up 3 percent from 2012.

“Despite the fact that enterprises and service providers are in the middle of massive network upheavals due to the evolution of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) technology, the telecom and datacom networking equipment and software market is on track to grow annually through 2018 with the fastest growth coming in 2015,” noted Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at Infonetics Research.

To that end, Infonetics is projecting service providers and enterprises to spend $1 trillion on telecom/datacom gear and software from 2014 to 2018.

By revenue, market share leaders in order are Cisco, Huawei, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and ZTE. The order didn’t change from last year – and their market shares are virtually unchanged. Vendor share positions held steady in the enterprise segment, Infonetics said, with Cisco way in the lead, followed distantly by Avaya, Brocade, HP, and Juniper (listed in alphabetical order), which are tightly bunched.

Huawei is performing particularly well in one segment.

“Looking at just the service provider equipment space, we’re seeing a shakeup in vendor market share, with Huawei leapfrogging longtime number-one Ericsson to take the top spot in 2013,” said Michael Howard, co-founder of Infonetics and co-author of the report. “While Huawei’s been doing well in a number of regions, China’s economy is a key factor keeping Huawei’s growth so strong.”

Asia Pacific’s telecom/datacom equipment and software revenue grew 6 percent year over year compared to North America’s 4.5 percent growth. Infonetics says this trend will continue through at least 2018. 

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