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According to a research conducted by T3i Group LLC, five manufacturers dominated the Global Internet Protocol telephony Line Market in the third quarter of last year: Cisco, Siemens, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya.

 

Cisco, Siemens, Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent revenues revealed quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year increase. Avaya’s (News - Alert) results were a wash, with quarter-over-quarter gains but a year-over-year dip. Overall, third-quarter global manufacturer revenues totaled $4 billion, up 6 percent from 2Q08, but down 3 percent from 3Q07. As the third quarter tends to be the strongest point historically, growth was not a surprise. Preliminary 4Q08 results suggest a downward trend.

 

In the Asia-Pacific region, telephony systems have smaller average line sizes in most countries, and 3Q08 revenue was up 3 percent quarter over quarter. The majority of an IP system’s cost is associated with the telephones rather than the system control, so smaller systems have fewer lines over which to spread the network and central controller costs. But the soft economy pulled revenues down 11 percent year over year.

 

The Central and Latin American market reveals that 3Q08 revenue improved , up 28 percent quarter over quarter and 22 percent year over year. Siemens showed a 56-percent spike compared with 2Q08, with 27 percent year over year, and Siemens led the CALA for three years in a row.

 

Europe, Middle East and Africa 3Q08 telephony systems gained 3 percent quarter over quarter and 1 percent year over year due to shipments of higher-priced IP products. Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) and Siemens accounted for more than one-third of IPT sales in the region.

 

In developing regions of EMEA, T3i Group’s research also shows key systems don’t own the 2-40 line segment, as they often have when small business markets emerge. IP PBX software switches have been scaling downward, and new systems now serve the 2- to-10-line size segment. Asterisk (News - Alert) open-source-software-based systems have gained in such countries as Russia.

 

“The Asterisk-based AastraLink Pro 160 doesn’t require a hosted Web server to auto-provision Aastra (News - Alert) teleworker phones or user licenses,” said Nik Alexiou, Market Research Specialist at T3i Group and co-author of the “Global InfoTrack for Enterprise Communications Third Quarter 2008 Report.” He continued, “In addition, the Microsoft (News - Alert) Response Point software-based Aastra RP is an IP PBX unit equipped with voice recognition, a unified-communications client and Aastra phones.”