This IDC study analyzes Japan's LAN switch market and vendor shares in 2004. The Japan LAN switch market in 2004 amounted to 28.366 million shipped ports and the end-user revenue was 183.006 billion Yen. This was the first positive revenue growth since 2001. Cisco Systems remained at the helm with the largest vendor share based on both revenue and port shipments. Meanwhile, the market shares of the vendors in the second and subsequent positions declined from the previous year. Hitachi Cable managed to get into the top 5 for the first time.

"For vendors to increase their shares in a market that has passed the growth period, it will probably be effective to increase the sales channels' profit margins and concentrate on selected product lineups," opines Kenichi Kusano, analyst, Network Equipment, IDC Japan.