Foundry and Netgear post double digit growth

Networking vendors defy impending global downturn by achieving positive results

Networking vendors Foundry and Netgear defied tough trading conditions to post double digit revenue growth in 2008's first quarter.

Foundry's global revenue for the three months to 31 March was up 10.5 per cent on Q1 2007 to $150.1m (£76m), while net income was up 52.7 per cent to $13.9m.

North American commercial revenue accounted for 53.4 per cent of the total, while sales to the US federal government represented 19.4 per cent. EMEA sales provided 15.7 per cent of total revenue, while sales in Japan and the rest of Asia represented 3.9 and 7.6 per cent respectively.

Foundry chief executive Bobby Johnson said: "While Foundry experienced a challenging environment during the first quarter, we still achieved over 10 per cent growth year-over-year. As the overall macro environment stabilizes, we believe the recent investments we've made in our sales organization and product portfolio will have a positive impact on our business."

Netgear reported worldwide revenues of $198.2m for the three months to 31 March, an increase of 14 per cent on the same period last year. Net income, however, was down 20 per cent to $11.2m. Half of Netgear's global revenues came from EMEA, 40 per cent from North America and 10 per cent from the Asia Pacific region.

Netgear chief executive Patrick Lo said: “We enjoyed very healthy growth in Q1 in both the Asia Pacific and North America Regions, as well as in Service Provider channels worldwide. However, we encountered significant market weakness in the UK in the latter part of the quarter. We believe the downturn of the UK market in March was due to the country’s macroeconomic weakness. We also observed a slow down in the US retail market, prompting our primary competitor to lower prices below ours for certain consumer products."