According to the Dell'Oro Group, the service provider core router market grew 22% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2016, extending a growth streak to seven consecutive quarters. Both Huawei and Juniper had their own strong quarters for core router revenue, each growing in double digits year-over-year.

"The service provider core router market had a great quarter vs. the same period a year ago, almost reaching record revenue levels set over eight years ago," said Alam Tamboli, senior analyst at Dell'Oro Group. "Huawei was the primary contributor to the quarter's results with a strong showing to keep the second rank in the service provider core router market. The company continued to realize significant strength from service providers in China as we estimate that over 80% of the company's core router revenue comes from customers in China. Thanks to record-setting sales of the PTX, Juniper's core router revenue was just below Huawei's, allowing Juniper to keep the third vendor rank. Looking forward, the core router market is expected to moderate into 2017 as several of the larger projects that are driving 2016's results will likely slow down or complete over the next few quarters while other new projects are not expected to be as large of a scale."

Earlier this week, Dell'Oro reported that the enterprise server market had declined for the first time in 15 quarters.