A new report from market research firm Dell'Oro Group predicts that although the business VoIP market will continue to grow in 2009, its rate of growth will slow considerably due to the downturn in the economy.


The firm’s Enterprise Telephony Quarterly Report predicts that the growth in IP lines for the PBX market will decline for the first time ever in 2009 – this following more than 10 years of steady growth.

 

“For 2009, we anticipate a degree of vendor volatility that will cause many customers to stay on the sidelines for a longer period of time than we would expect if downward pressure was coming only from the weakened economy,” said Alan Weckel, director at Dell'Oro Group, in a release. "Also, as customers look to alleviate budget constraints, IP line growth will slow in the short term, putting additional downward pressure on the market. In the current environment, some customers will hold on to existing analog and digital lines for a longer period of time.”

According to the report, Cisco, Avaya and Nortel had the most IP line shipments in the first quarter. The report also reveals that IP line shipments for the eight largest vendors in the market -- Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Nortel and Siemens -- averaged only 49 percent of total line shipments in the quarter, which means smaller vendors are now starting to pick up substantial market share.

The Enterprise Telephony Quarterly Report offers complete, in-depth coverage of the market and includes tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, line (analog/digital and IP) and unit shipments for PBX (IP, Hybrid, Traditional PBX, Traditional Key) and telephones (IP and Legacy Business Phones). The report also includes tables covering manufacturers' revenue for Unified Communications and Enterprise Voice Applications.

Interestingly, Dell'Oro Group also released another report recently showing that the 10GB Ethernet Network Adapter market rebounded in the first quarter of this year, compared to the prior quarter, when it saw a decline. In its Network Adapters Quarterly Report the firm noted that 2009 will be a year of growth for this technology, despite declines in many other networking technologies.

“Users continue to virtualize servers because of return on investment and equipment cost savings,” said Seamus Crehan, vice president at Dell'Oro Group, in a release. “Once users move to a virtualized environment, 10GB Ethernet server connectivity becomes a very attractive option.”

The firm also recently released its Access Quarterly Report, which shows that worldwide PON equipment revenues grew 9 percent sequentially in the first quarter of this year. The report shows that both GPON and EPON had sequential growth.

"It appears the weak economy has yet to have a major impact on existing PON projects as operators continue to hold to their strategy of increasing user bandwidth to create new revenue streams," said Tam Dell'Oro, president of Dell'Oro Group, in another release. "PON revenue growth in the first quarter was higher than what we had expected due to rapidly increasing EPON build-outs in China, strong GPON ONT shipments for Verizon's FiOS service, and continued strong EPON demand in Japan.”

 

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