Corded PBX Market Suffers Down End to 2009

Yes, you were right to think 2009 continued to be difficult to the end. And your experience jibes with the Corded PBX market (well, excluding Micro PBX products, that is) as well as Tiger Woods.

According to a recent study by market consultancy MZA, it turns out the Corded PBX market declined by 10 percent in Q4 2009, period October to December 2009 inclusive, compared to Q4 2008.  Overall, more than 13 million extensions were supplied to the market during this time.

That might sound good at first blush, but over the rest of the year declines of over 20 percent were registered, with the worst performance recorded in Q1 2009, when volumes dropped by 30 percent.

This means that the year 2009 ends with total volumes down by 22 percent compared to 2008. Not good. Still in better shape than Tiger’s sponsor roster, but overall nothing to write home about.

MZA found that IP desktop deployments continued to gain share,  accounting for 30 percent of total extensions in Q4 2009 and 29 percent for 2009 as a whole. This, company officials say, “reflects the fact that hybrid products remain significant in the SME segment and retain popularity also with larger enterprises, which have the need to maintain a mix of both analogue and digital and IP desktop extensions.”

Overall in 2009, the market worst affected was Eastern Europe, where annual volumes declined more than 50 percent compared to 2008. Latin America and Middle East and Africa recorded the next most significant declines, at 25 percent and 21 percent compared with full year 2008.

North America witnessed significant improvements in both Q3 and Q4 2009 compared with full year volumes recording a fall of 20 percent compared to 2008.  Western Europe and APAC regions recorded declines of 18 percent and 16 percent respectively compared with full year 2008.

Cisco continued to lead the Global market in Q4 2009, as they did in the preceding three quarters and took the number one position for 2009 as a whole with a share of 12 percent of extensions shipped.  Panasonic and NEC followed Cisco to take number 2 and 3 positions respectively with 11 percent share for the full year 2009.