Avaya Increases PBX Market Lead

For the third straight quarter, Avaya is tops in the overall PBX market, with nearly one-quarter of worldwide revenue, according to Infonetics Research. The finding is part of the research firms 2Q11 Enterprise Unified Communications, VoIP and TDM Equipment vendor market share report.

"The top enterprise telephony vendors remain in a tight battle to gain new customers and hold onto existing ones as enterprises migrate to IP and unified communications solutions, said Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics. [Avaya was] helped by steady shipments and healthy average selling prices. Cisco maintains its strong second position despite a slight lead in overall line shipments."

The full version of the report, which becomes available on Aug. 29, says global PBX/KTS phone system revenue dropped 2.3 percent in 2Q11 to a little more than $2 billion, but is up almost 4 percent from a year ago (2Q10). Infonetics calls the markets recovery slow and steady. Also of note: Unified Communications revenue was also up 2.3 percent in 2Q11, to approximately $112 million, on the back of Microsoft UC solutions that continue to gain in worldwide deployments.

The only vendors posting positive PBX revenue gains last quarter, the report says, were Aastra, Mitel and Shoretel.

Asia is the strongest market as of late, with four straight quarters of PBX revenue growth up 29 percent year over year. The rough economy in North America and EMEA is putting pressure on the enterprise telephony segment, particularly the lower end of the market, as businesses in both regions are slow to add employees and are generally holding off on upgrades, Infonetics said.