PBX revenue slides worldwide in Q1

Unified communications market expands 27 per cent year on year

Sales of PBXes, whether traditional TDM, IP-based, or hybrid, were down eight per cent in Q1 while the unified communications market is continuing to expand.

The figures are from Infonetics Research's Q1 2014 Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment report, tracking sales of VoIP gateways, UC apps, and IP phones around the world as well as PBX telephony systems.

Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics, confirmed that pockets of growth can be seen in Europe and South America, although the enterprise telephony market as a whole continues to struggle.

"Purchase cycles are getting longer, and competitive activity is putting pressure on the market with pricing all over the map," Myers said.

She noted that businesses are delaying new PBX purchases and instead spending their budget on UC applications.

Worldwide PBX revenue for all varieties of system was down eight per cent in Q1 from the same quarter one year ago, and from Q4 of 2013.

The brightest spot was the UC segment, which expanded 27 per cent in Q1 by value from Q1 of 2013, Myers said, and region-wise growth was seen in the Caribbean and Latin America – a phenomenon she put down to "anticipation of the World Cup" football tournament.

Cisco, Avaya, and NEC lead the PBX market, with Mitel sneaking into the top four as a result of its merger with Aastra.

Microsoft leads in the UC market and was the only vendor in the enterprise telephony segment to post year-over-year revenue growth in Q1 of 2014, according to Infonetics.