Service provider CapEx spending made a nice rebound in 2004 with worldwide spending totaling $207 billion, indicating a brighter future for the service provider WAN equipment market, reports In-Stat. Service provider CapEx budgets will continue to grow moderately over the next five years, as wireline service providers invest in new triple-play and converged MPLS networks, and wireless service providers build new 3G infrastructure, the high-tech market research firm says. Worldwide service provider CapEx budgets are forecast to reach $278 billion in 2009. "In-Stat forecasts particularly strong growth in sales of packet telephony media gateways and softswitches, core and edge routers, WiMAX base transceiver stations, and teledatacom servers, in 2005," says Henry Goldberg, In-Stat analyst. "Sales of multiservice switches, optical transport equipment, and DSLAMs should also grow." The largest component of worldwide WAN equipment sales in 2004 was mobile wireless infrastructure, which was about 29 percent of total worldwide network CapEx budgets. Voice circuit switches, which used to be the largest component of wireline networking hardware, accounted for only about 5 percent of WAN equipment sales to service providers in 2004. DSLAM port shipments continued to grow strongly in 2004, but revenues declined because of reduced prices due to stiff competition among suppliers.
The worldwide server market has entered a new phase defined almost entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure economics rather than traditional enterprise refresh cycles. The latest market data shows robust growth and a structural shift in where value is created, who captures it, and which architectures are setting the pace for the next decade. IDC reports that worldwide server revenue reached a record $112.4 billion in the third quarter of 2025, representing a striking 61 percent year-over-year increase compared to the same quarter in 2024. For context, this means the market is adding tens of billions of dollars in incremental quarterly spend, driven overwhelmingly by AI and accelerated computing requirements. IT Server Market Development Over the first three quarters of 2025, server revenue has already reached $314.2 billion, meaning the market has nearly doubled in size compared to 2024, underscoring how AI buildouts have compressed several years of exp...