LAN switches in Europe, Middle East and Africa down 1.4% in Q3 2004

European, Middle Eastern and African market for LAN switches continued to decline in port shipments and revenues compared to the previous quarter. The overall LAN switch market in EMEA declined by 1.4% to 16.2 mln ports in Q3 2004, compared with 16.4 mln in Q2 2004, and revenue decreased 6.1% to $1.2 bln in Q2 2004. This is worse than the previous quarter, when EMEA LAN switch port shipments decreased 0.6%, and revenues fell 3.3%.

The decline in Q3 of 2004 was caused by reductions in fast Ethernet port shipments and revenues; fast Ethernet port shipments fell by 2.8% to 13.7 mln ports and revenue declined by 13.5% to $465.4 mln in Q3 2004. At the same time, gigabit Ethernet port shipments continued to increase in importance and the growth rate was higher this quarter than in Q2 2004. Gigabit Ethernet port shipments increased 7.0%, while revenue declined slightly by 1.2%. The largest vendor, measured in revenue, in Q3 2004 was Cisco, followed by HP, 3Com, Nortel, and Extreme.