The markets rebounded a bit in the second half of 2009 but were still down overall from 2008, the firm notes.

Nonetheless, the Ethernet switch market grew 15% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2009, to $4.2 billion. Port shipments grew 4%, Infonetics found.

Overall, customers opted for lower cost switches, which negatively impacted switch revenue growth. Surprisingly, sales of higher-priced chassis-based systems had the highest sequential growth within the market, Infonetics found.

Worldwide revenue of 10G Ethernet switches grew 63% in 2009.