Market research firm Infonetics Research tracks and analyzes IP edge router, IP core router, and carrier Ethernet switch (CES) vendors and markets. Its latest report shows that in the third quarter 2012 (3Q12), the global service provider router and switch market is down five percent both sequentially and from the year-ago third quarter and is now just shy of $3.4 billion .

As per the Infonetics quarterly report, Asia Pacific is the only region up in 3Q12 over 2Q12, albeit slightly, built on a 31 percent spike from Japan. In the router-only segment (IP edge and core routers), Cisco maintains its strong market share lead, but in a shakeup in the three-way race for the next three leadership positions, Juniper took back the number two spot from Huawei who dropped to number four while Alcatel-Lucent held steady in the third position in 3Q12. The report shows that Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei together account for 88 percent of the total IP router revenue (edge and core) in 3Q12.

In a statement,  Michael Howard, Infonetics Research’s co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks said, “The performance of the router/switch market roughly reflects economic conditions, and true to form economic weakness in Europe, North America, and Latin America drove down IP router and switch revenue in the third quarter. EMEA posted another negative quarter amid the ongoing fiscal crisis in Europe, and we may not see much of the usual final quarter budget flush, as it seems just as the European Commission gets closer to economic steadiness, more negative reports arrive.”

Although North America is showing positive economic signs, carrier router/switch revenue is down two percent from the year-ago quarter, and Latin America is slowing as many of the year long projects in South America and Mexico.

The company’s quarterly service provider routers and switches report provides worldwide, regional, China, and Japan market share, market size, forecasts, analysis, and trends for IP edge and core routers and carrier Ethernet switches. It also tracks the IP edge market by application and covers Alaxala, Alcatel-Lucent, Brocade, Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Extreme, Fujitsu, Hitachi Cable, Huawei, Juniper, NEC, Nokia Siemens, Orckit-Corrigent, Tellabs, ZTE and others.