As businesses continue to hold off new phone system purchases, global enterprise Private Branch Exchange (PBX) revenue fell 6 percent in the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15), compared to the same period a year ago.
According to the IHS Infonetics Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment report, worldwide PBX revenue, including TDM, hybrid and pure IP, totalled US$1.6 billion during the first quarter, with line shipments up three percent compared to 2014.
However, sales of unified communications (UC) applications dropped 5 percent in 1Q15 from the year-ago first quarter as enterprise spending remained conservative.
“The enterprise PBX market remains challenging, with revenue down yet again in the first quarter of 2015,” says Diane Myers, research director, VoIP, UC and IMS, IHS.
“Pure IP PBX was the one segment to post year-over-year growth due to strength in Asia Pacific.”
Myers says that pure IP PBX line shipments were a strong driver, up 17 percent year-over-year following a solid 4Q14 while hybrid IP PBXs accounted for around 60 percent of all lines shipped in 1Q15.
In 1Q15, the top enterprise telephony vendors are Cisco and Avaya, with Microsoft continuing to dominate the UC platform market.
“Things have started to slow on the unified communications (UC) front as well, which we attribute to movement to the cloud as businesses look for ease of management and flexibility,” Myers adds.
