Network Device Market Becoming More Crowded and Competitive

2020 report reveals hundreds of device vendors compete for limited space on today’s networks

WATERLOO, ON / November 10, 2020 — The network device market is becoming increasingly fragmented and competitive, says a new report from Auvik Networks.

The 2020 Network Vendor Diversity report reveals increasing competition in the network access point, switch, router, and firewall hardware markets. The number of network device vendors represented in the data grew to 368, with 14 new switch vendors, 13 new router vendors, and 2 new firewall vendors being accounted for.

  • The top 10 most commonly deployed vendors across all device categories—Cisco, Meraki, Ubiquiti, HP, Aruba, Ruckus, SonicWall, Dell, NETGEAR, and Fortinet—claim around 80% of devices across all networks.
  • The most competitive network device category is switches, with 138 vendors. The top nine switch vendors compete for 93.4% of the category share.
  • Nearly two-thirds of all managed service providers (MSPs) are managing more than five network device vendors, but 90% of networks of all sizes have only one to three device vendors deployed on them.

The report also highlights the influence of a number of evolving industry trends.

  • SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) technology and virtual machines are continuing to grow in popularity, replacing traditional branch routers and switches on today’s networks.
  • The rise of device vendors like Cisco-owned Meraki and Ubiquiti highlights a preference among IT professionals for devices with a seamless user experience, no matter the price.

“An increasingly crowded and competitive network device market presents a challenge for vendors at the top of the market and a huge opportunity for those at the bottom,” says Alex Hoff, Chief Product Officer at Auvik Networks. “We expect the market leaders of tomorrow will be those who truly understand how their customers use their products and prioritize giving their customers the best user experience possible.”

The report, titled Network Vendor Diversity 2020, is based on data from over 375,000 managed network devices deployed across a sample of 30,000 networks. Download a copy of the free report, here.