HP ProCurve experienced year-over-year port growth for the first calendar quarter of 2008 that nearly quadrupled the growth rate of the networking industry, according to data from a quarterly report by market research firm Dell’Oro Group.

According to the analyst firm’s data, ProCurve, the world’s second largest enterprise LAN networking vendor, grew worldwide port shipments by 28.4 per cent in the first calendar quarter of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. The industry growth rate for this same period was 7.82 per cent.

Comparing quarter-over-quarter regional port growth in total switched Layer 2 through Layer 7, ProCurve’s port shipments in Asia Pacific grew by 52.4 per cent versus an Asian market that declined 5.1 per cent. In North America, ProCurve shipments grew at 10.4 per cent in a market that declined by 11.8 per cent. ProCurve port shipments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa grew at 14.0 per cent in a market that declined 1.0 per cent. In addition, according to Dell’Oro Group data, ProCurve’s Power over Ethernet (PoE) worldwide shipments grew 68.4 per cent year over year compared to market growth of 26.0 per cent. This data sustains ProCurve in the No. 2 industry position in PoE.

In Layer 2 and Layer 3 total Gigabit port shipments, ProCurve quarter-over-quarter growth was 20.8 per cent in a market that declined 2.0 per cent. Dell’Oro Group data places ProCurve as the No. 2 overall Gigabit networking vendor. In the Web managed Gigabit segment category, ProCurve grew at a 60.6 per cent rate, in contrast with quarter over quarter industry growth of 12.7 per cent, boosting ProCurve Small Business Networking switches to the No. 2 position in this segment with a 21.5 market share.