When it comes to worldwide router revenues, Cisco is still the top dog, but in a recent report Huawei came in second overall, according to a recent study.

Overall, a report by Infonetics Research found that the global service provider router and switch market, including carrier Ethernet switches and IP edge and core routers, grew 4 percent, to $3.5 billion, in the second quarter of this year when compared to the previous quarter.

 “A nearly 50 percent increase in revenue in China propped up the global service provider router and switch market in the second quarter,” said Michael Howard, Infonetics Research’s co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks. “China was the differentiating factor between a positive worldwide quarter and one that otherwise would have been down.”

“While Cisco has long led the global IP edge and core router market by very comfortable margins, and whose share is steady from this time last year, Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper and Huawei have been fighting it out every quarter for the past year-and-a-half for the next three leadership positions. The race tightened considerably in the first half of 2012, with Huawei taking the second spot in the second quarter.”

When compared to the same quarter a year ago, Infonetics found that the overall carrier router and switch market was down 9 percent, as service providers remained cautious, particularly in North America and Europe. Latin America was the only major world region posting an increase in carrier router and switch revenue on a year-over-year basis with a 57 percent increase.

ZTE posted strong gains in carrier Ethernet switches (CES) in the most recent second quarter, particularly in China where carrier Ethernet switches were used in major mobile backhaul deployments.