The total market for hubs, today, stands just above Rs 49 crore in 2000-01. The overall sales revenue dropped as against that in the previous year by about 35 percent. This is primarily because the segment has witnessed two distinct trends. First, switches penetrating into the hubs market. Second, it has become an off-the-shelf product line. This market typically saw growth in mostly unmanaged hubs, as the managed hub users have moved on to use switches. The market, also clearly, saw a shift towards the 10/100 Mbps. In fact, Intel, Allied and Accton have been very active in this space. The average sales value per unit was around at Rs 5,000 for the unmanaged segment. And a total of over 14.5 lakh ports of hubs were sold during the last fiscal.

The top five players in this category are D-Link, Allied Telesyn, Dax, 3Com and Intel. D-Link, clearly is the brand that is selling the most. It has almost 65.31 percent market share in the category and is the king of the market. And, its competition would come from the likes of Dax and Linksys in this space, as 3Com and Intel have moved to the higher end of the market.