Market Overview

The Software-Defined Wide Area Network Market is expected to register a CAGR of 33.4% over the forecast period (2020-2025). The increased adoption of cloud-based solutions has led to the rise in the number of complexities at the organizational level. The need to streamline the processes have boosted the adoption of SD-WAN.

  • The increase in smartphone penetration rates has to lead to an increase in mobile data traffic. This has exposed the service providers to huge problems related to the streamlining of the processes.
  • The enterprises have now shifted their focus on the reduction of operational expenditure. Due to huge competition amongst the manufacturers, the only way to increase the profits is to minimize the operational expenditure.
  • Certain concerns over the security of the SD-WAN network have come into the picture which is restricting its growth and adoption rates.



Scope of the Report


SD-WAN simplifies the management and operation of a WAN by decoupling (separating) the networking hardware from its control mechanism. SD-WAN utilizes the internet or cloud-native private networks. SD-WAN decouples the network from the management plane and detaches the traffic management and monitoring functions from the hardware.

Key Market Trends


Retail is Expected to Have a Significant Market Share

Any large retailer requires IT efficiency and cost-effective solutions. Retail business is a highly distributed organization with thousands of branch stores in which the network plays a crucial role. In order to match bandwidth cost and performance optimization needs, the organization needs to migrate to a hybrid network (MPLS and Internet).

The network of the retail business is complex to operate with several network segments per store thas is required for both PCI compliance and supporting guest WiFi. The multiple WAN technologies per site (LTE and MPLS) makes the operations even more complex as all of these technologies must work together with local WiFi and switching. As one outlet of the retail business rapidly rolls out new applications for its other branch store, network operating costs and difficult change management which are impacting the agility are becoming major concerns.

Brand management is essential for any retail business. When part of a larger retail group, brands compete with each other in order to attract customers. Within this parent company, each brand follows an aggressive growth plan, including rapidly opening new branch stores. Each brand seizes to make its own IT decisions, while the parent company empowers them with standardized solutions. Management of the local Internet breakouts is operationally challenging. The pressing challenge involves simplification of branch connectivity, especially those with Internet breakouts, and provision sites faster.

North America is Expected to Hold the Major Market Share

SD-WAN solutions have gained popularity amongst the enterprise and service providers in the North America region. With multiple successful pilot projects and full-fledged deployments, that are being performed by the enterprises, are creating a significant market buzz across global regions. Driven by growing awareness and proven benefits of the SD-WAN solutions, critical markets of North America are expecting a massive boost in the growth.

The long term trend for SD-WAN market indicates that the North America market has contributed the highest business opportunities for SD-WAN vendors. Ther growing the retail business in the United States has led to more organizational complexities which can be simplified with the SD-WAN solutions.

Retail Sales MoM in the United States has averaged 0.36 percent from 1992 until 2019. US retail trade leaped 1.6 percent from a month earlier in March 2019, following a 0.2 percent drop in February and easily beating market expectations of a 0.9 percent. This was the most significant increase in retail trade since September 2017 which is boosted by sales of motor vehicles and a range of other goods.

SD-WAN adoption in the IT sector is noticing a significant growth as companies are trying to streamline their WAN infrastructure and evolve toward more cloud-based applications. Due to the increasing complexity in the WAN infrastructure, the service providers are coming up with new technologies to cater to the problem and thus boost the adoption of SD-WAN.

Competitive Landscape


The Software-Defined Wide Area Network Market is highly competitive and consists of several major players. In terms of market share, few of the major players currently dominate the market. The service providers are engaging themselves in mergers and acquisition in order to gain competitive advantage and to trigger expansion.

  • August 2017 - Cisco announced that it has completed the acquisition of Viptela Inc., a privately held software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) company based in San Jose. This acquisition is aimed at expanding Cisco’s SD-WAN portfolio with increased flexibility and simplicity getting delivered through the cloud.
  • December 2017 - VMware acquired VeloCloud, the market leader in cloud-delivered SD-WAN. This enables enterprises and service providers to deploy flexible, secure WAN connectivity.



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