The global market for traditional data center network switches and routers pulled off modest growth in the last year, but the long-term picture for routers in particular looks bleak as data center operators and companies increasingly turn toward a software-defined future.

Analyst firm International Data Corp.’s latest report on the networking gear, released Monday, shows that the switch business raked in $25.7 billion in the last year, as it grew by 5.4 percent. Routers meanwhile, saw $15.2 billion in revenue in 2017, representing growth of 4 percent over the previous year.

IDC’s report noted a number of trends that seem to be defining the markets, with large data center operators tending to buy faster ports, and 40 gigabit-per-second Ethernet technology rapidly becoming outdated. Meanwhile, the traditional market leader, Cisco Systems Inc., continues to see its dominance of the market eroded by smaller “white-box” or generic makers and the rise of software-based alternatives.

The biggest bright spot in the Ethernet switch market is the 100Gbps segment, which IDC says is rapidly becoming the default for hyperscale data centers. The analyst firm said 1.3 million of these switches were shipped in the final quarter of 2017, amounting to $661 million in revenue. The 100Gbps switches now account for 9.6 percent of total market revenue, up from just 4.8 percent in the same quarter a year ago.

The 25Gbps and 50Gbps switch segments also saw modest growth, as customers splashed out $124 million in the last quarter of 2017 to buy more than a million ports at those speeds. However, growth in these segments came at the expense of 40Gbps switches, which saw sales and revenue in the fourth quarter decline by 6.9 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively.

The market for routers also had mixed results, displaying growth of just 4 percent for the full year. Sales to service providers rose by 5.7 percent in 2017, but this was offset somewhat by a 1.1 percent decline in sales to enterprises.

Despite that modest growth, the state of North America’s router market suggests that things are likely to go downhill fast. Revenue from router sales in the U.S. was down 7.9 percent in 2017, and a stunning 20 percent in the last quarter. That’s not a good sign for those in the router-making business, as U.S. companies are enthusiastically adopting software-based routing instead, and IDC says that those in other countries will likely follow their lead in the months to come.

Cisco managed to retain its position as market leader for yet another year, but the company is facing a growing challenge from rivals including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Arista Networks and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., all of which increased their market share. Cisco did actually achieve slight revenue growth of 1.5 percent with its switches, but its market share fell from 57 percent in 2016 to 54.9 percent in 2017.

China’s Huawei edged out HPE to become the second-ranked switch maker, finishing the year with a 10.3 percent market share in the fourth quarter. HPE saw its share of the market grow to 5.9 percent, while Arista saw stunning growth of 41 percent in the last quarter, grabbing it nearly a 6 percent share of the market.

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