Networking market grows at 40 % in Chennai

CHENNAI, September 8: The networking market in Tamil Nadu registered a

growth of 40 per cent compared to last year. Tamil Nadu is expected to

contribute about 30 per cent to the country's overall revenue of the

networking market, expected to touch Rs 1,500 crore during the current

fiscal, as against Rs 952 crore registered last year.

In the regional market, Compex leads the pack with nearly 40 per cent

market share, closely followed by D-Link. The rest is divided between

Lanbit, Accton, Cisco, Intel, Molex, Longshine, 3COM, Cabletron, Nortel

and others. Along with Compex and D-Link, Intel is also aggressively

marketing its products through its GID network in the city.

While networking has become an integral part of any technology such as

e-mail, e-commerce, ERP and datawarehousing, the real growth came from

small and medium enterprises investing in networked operations.

"People have come out of a single desktop operation to a multiple PCs

method. Networking enables connectivity amongst the multiple PCs for

communications and accessibility. It is just a matter of time before the

SOHO segment too becomes a major contributor," said Gemini

Communications GM Easwaran Annamalai.

Awareness about the emerging technologies in the networking industry

has also contributed significantly to the market's growth. Accel Senior

Network Engineer N. Raghupathy said, "People are upgrading themselves

to higher speed products lines. Switches and routers are still in high

demand with the higher capacity versions selling like hot cakes. The

market has matured to invest on technology rather than on obsolete

concepts. "

Along with ISPs and WAN, the trend now in the market is the Virtual

Private Network (VPN). Earlier, companies used to share a single e-mail

account among its employees. With the entry of private ISPs, it has

changed to individual e-mail accounts and internal communications

increasing simultaneously. This leads to the popularity of the VPN concept

for group discussions and networking of companies within and outside the

country. The success of the computer industry itself, both hardware and

software, has enabled the emergence of successful operations with

networking in place.

The introduction of new products and slashing of prices also

contributes to the growth of the industry. Companies like D-Link and Apcom

with a strong reseller focus in the Chennai market have been able to have

a whale of a sale in the current fiscal. Both the companies have

registered a growth rate of more than 50 per cent. Some of the other

contributors to the industry include the MNCs and the government.

Overall, the networking industry in Tamil Nadu is poised to outperform

expectations. Major companies like Cabletron, Cisco, Accton, Nortel will

be pushing their services and products line in the market aggressively.

Some industry players anticipate the growth rate to double next year.