Pictured: Shin Umeda, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group

Enterprise spending on SD-WAN networking solutions rose sharply in the third quarter of 2021, according to research from a leading analyst name.

The newly published report from Dell’Oro Group demonstrated that the global SD-WAN market grew 45% in the three months to the end of September, compared to the prior COVID-affected year. Cisco hang on to the top spot for revenue share for the quarter, followed by Fortinet and VMware in second and third places.

“Enterprises are upgrading network infrastructures at accelerated rates compared to pre-pandemic times, and our research finds that the SD-WAN market is growing at strong double-digit rates in all regions of the world,” said Shin Umeda, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Because SD-WAN is software-based technology, the global supply chain disruptions have had less of an effect compared to hardware-based networking products,” added Umeda.

Dell’Oro’s report confirms that the SD-WAN market is consolidating around a small number of vendors, with the top six names on its ranking accounting for a 69% share of sales for the period in question. Cisco’s quarterly SD-WAN revenue nearly doubled in 3Q 2021, with especially strong growth in the North America region. The quarterly market for hardware-based access routers grew for the first time in almost two years.