EMEA Virtual PBX and IP Phone Markets Reaches $3.5 Billion in 2011

Virtual PBX solutions deliver a high level of flexibility and tons of features that allow organizations to save money on expensive equipment. If an organization wants to relocate its headquarters, there is no PBX equipment to move, no phone numbers to change and there is no downtime. Due to these various benefits, cloud- based PBX solutions are being rapidly adopted across the world.

The IP PBX and IP phone markets in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region grew to almost $3.5 billion in 2011, according a recent report titled, “EMEA IP PBX and IP Phone 2011 Vendor Shares” published by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The market for IP PBX and IP phones in Central and Eastern Europe grew 35.5 percent year over

year while the Western European market grew only 7.3 percent. Additionally, the IP PBX and IP phone market in Central and Eastern Europe are being led by strong growth in Russia.

Of the five biggest players, Cisco and Siemens demonstrated growth in their market share in the EMEA region consecutively over the years, while three other vendors reported flat growth or recorded slight decline in results. The growth was unevenly distributed in the region.

Some of the latest trends in virtual PBX include virtualization, support for bring your own device (BYOD) policies, videoconferencing capabilities, integrated end-user experience across platforms and devices, and the capability to deliver functionalities from hosted or public cloud solutions.

“Recent trends emphasize the fundamental transformation of the IP PBX business, which has been under way for some time now," said study author Michael Vorisek, senior research analyst with IDC, in a statement. "An increasing number of IP PBXs are being installed as part of unified communications and collaboration [UC&C] deployments.”

According to IDC, none of the major players in the market would define themselves as IP PBX vendors. Instead they would all position their products in the UC&C space.

“Vendors' strategic choices for IP PBX architecture, endpoints, and technology alliances are thus increasingly being defined by their overall UC&C strategies, which in turn will more frequently influence the success or failure IP PBX offerings," Vorisek added.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.

Edited by Jamie Epstein