Infonetics Research this week gave an update on the service-provider router market, which continued to grow at a rapid pace in the second quarter of this year.

Worldwide revenue for core and edge IP routers from service providers reached $2.6 billion in the quarter. Vendors earned 17% more in revenue in the second quarter than in the first, and the jump was 40% when compared to the second quarter of 2007, the research firm said.

The firm also noted that, since 2003, "IP router revenue has grown 20% to over 30% each year." Infonetics expects that trend to continue through this year with increasing traffic continuing to be the number one driver.

Cisco's revenue from IP edge and core routers rose 15% worldwide. Fujitsu made the biggest gain of the quarter, going from ninth in the world to sixth, Infonetics said. Other big gainers were Huawei, Foundry Networks and NEC, all of which posted gains in double digits. Juniper (the No. 2 player) and Alcatel-Lucent (No. 3) each grew their revenue in single digits.

Carriers' revenue growth is slowing, so that means they'll be spending less on this equipment in the future and the rapid growth in revenue for the manufacturers will slow or level out, Infonetics said.

Interestingly, revenue from carrier Ethernet switches grew more slowly, at just 3% from the first quarter to the second quarter of this year. And ATM multiservice switch revenue actually rose 12% quarter-to-quarter, for mobile backhaul - but revenues are actually down 12% from the previous year.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.