The unified communications market is up 27% from a year ago, says research. Top player Microsoft is also the only vendor in the enterprise telephony segment to post year-over-year revenue growth in 1Q14. The PBX market continues to decline.
Infonetics Research released its 1st quarter 2014 Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment report, says the enterprise telephony market continues to struggle as businesses hold off new PBX purchases and invest instead in unified communications (UC) applications.
"Purchase cycles are getting longer, and competitive activity is putting pressure on the market with pricing all over the map," notes Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.
Worldwide PBX revenue (TDM, hybrid, and pure IP) is down 8% in 1Q14 from 1Q13, and down 8% from 4Q13. Although there are pockets of growth in parts of Europe and South America, along with strength down market, none of it is large enough to lift the overall PBX market. Cisco, Avaya, and NEC are the PBX market share leaders; Mitel is now in the top 4 as a result of its merger with Aastra.
The unified communications (UC) segment is the lone bright spot, racking up a 27% worldwide revenue increase in 1Q14 from the same period a year ago