35.1% of the Router MarketWide moat

Routing is where Cisco's position is strongest of the two markets IDC measures for it. IDC estimated Cisco's router revenue grew 24.4% in the first quarter of 2026, giving it a 35.1% share of the market¹. In the same quarter its switching share was 29.3%².

Routers connect networks to each other: offices to the internet, carriers' regional networks to their cores, and increasingly data centres to other data centres. The buyers include telecom operators and cloud providers, whose core networks are built around a vendor's routing software. Replacing that vendor means retesting the network, which operators avoid unless something forces it.

That is why the router share holds up better than switching. It is also why Cisco's newer silicon matters here: its high-performance systems are "predominantly powered by Cisco Silicon One"³, which lets Cisco sell the same chips into routers and switches.

The weakness is who buys. Carrier and cloud orders are large and irregular, and a single customer's decision can move a quarter.

Cisco's router strength shows in its newest buyers. The finance chief said the P200, a Silicon One routing system, had three design wins with three different hyperscalers⁴, which puts Cisco's routers into the links between AI data centres, a market that did not exist in its current form a few years ago.

A router share holding above a third is what the franchise needs. A fall in IDC's quarterly share below 30% would mean the most defensible part of the business had started to leak.