The Lan switch market in EMEA has continued to grow in port shipments and revenues, according to newly published research from IDC.

The analyst firm's latest EMEA Lan Switch Tracker shows that port shipments increased by 10.6 per cent from 18.5 million in the third quarter of 2005 to 20.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Revenues increased by 0.8 per cent to $1.26bn in the fourth quarter of 2005, compared to $1.25bn in the third quarter.

Fast Ethernet port shipments increased "surprisingly strongly" in the fourth quarter by 10.2 per cent to 14.3 million ports, and revenues increased 2.3 per cent to $406.2m.

Gigabit Ethernet port shipments increased by 11.7 per cent to 4.7 million ports and revenues grew marginally by 0.2 per cent to $801.8m in the fourth quarter.

As a result of the increased demand for fast Ethernet Lan switches and strong price erosion in the Gigabit Ethernet segment, the average sales price of Lan switches declined by 8.9 per cent to $61.9 per port during the quarter.

A number of vendors reported double-digit port shipments and revenue growth during the quarter, namely Nortel, Alcatel, Belkin, and SMC (Accton), and were able to grow their market shares as a result.

The largest vendor measured in revenue during the quarter was Cisco, with a market share of 65.8 per cent. But Cisco lost most of the revenue market share it gained in the previous period.

HP Procurve, Cisco's main rival in this market, increased its revenue market share. The other major Lan switch vendors were Nortel, 3Com, and Extreme.

"The overall EMEA Lan switch market grew in the fourth quarter of 2005 as demand for Lan switches was strong. But due to strong price erosion, revenue increased only slightly," said Peter Hulleman, research manager with IDC's European Telecoms and Networking group.