Businesses all around the globe are embracing virtual PBXs because they offer all the functionality of a standard business telephony system and make direct communications simpler and more affordable.

In a recent report from Infonetics Research (News - Alert), an international market research and consulting firm, strong sales were shown in both Asia and Latin America which have helped push the overall enterprise virtual PBX (News - Alert) equipment market up 6 percent in 2011 when compared to 2010. The global PBX revenue has also increased by 2 percent.

"The growth is welcome news despite the flat final quarter of the year," said Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research in a statement.

The report also showed that the economic situation in North America and EMEA challenged the PBX and unified communications markets in 2011, causing small and medium businesses to not have the funds available to hire new employees at a rate that necessitated meaningful sales of PBX lines.  

The research also indicated that the global PBX/KTS system market totaled $8.43 billion in 2011, up from $7.97 billion.

The top PBX vendors were in a tight battle to gain new customers and hold on to existing ones as enterprises continue to migrate to IP and UC solutions.

According to Infonetics' quarterly Enterprise Unified Communication, VoIP, and TDM Equipment report Avaya (News - Alert) maintained its lead by a hair over Cisco in global PBX/KTS revenue in 2011, while Cisco led in the fourth ­quarter due to higher average selling prices on phones.

ShoreTel (News - Alert) posted the highest PBX revenue growth in 2011, all other enterprise telephony vendors either lost share or stayed flat in 2011.

Moreover, pure IP PBX systems and unified messaging were the sole segments of the enterprise VoIP and UC equipment market to post sequential growth in the fourth quarter.