Cataclysmic Q4 for UK PBX market

The UK PBX market suffered a year-on-year decline of 20 per cent during 2008's fourth quarter as the smallest and largest ends of the market both shrunk back rapidly, research has found.

The UK Quarterly Corded PBX and IP PBX Report from analyst MZA finds that about 580,000 PBX extensions were deployed in the UK in the three months to the end of December. This represents a drop-off of a fifth from Q4 2007's figure, fuelled in part by a 24 per cent slump in the sub-100 extensions market.

The UK PBX space continued growing up to the middle of last year and Q2 2008 extensions rose four per cent year on year. The third quarter brought worse news as the market began to decline and extensions fell off five per cent from the 2007 figure.

The micro PBX market during Q4 2008 shrank a massive 54 per cent and the rest of the 2-10 extensions segment fell back 28 per cent. The above 100 extensions sector was less severely impacted as extensions dropped by 15 per cent year on year.

The above-1,000 extensions segment endured a tough quarter, though, as the market shrank back more than a quarter. Cisco is the UK's top PBX vendor, having snagged 18 per cent of the market, one point ahead of Nortel, with Avaya sitting in third.

Nortel tops the sub-100 extensions pile, ahead of Mitel and Panasonic, while Cisco leads the above-100 extensions segment, just in front of Avaya and Nortel. During Q4 2008 half of all extensions deployed were IP, up from 44 per cent in 2007's closing quarter.

In the below 100 extensions arena IP penetration rose seven per cent on last year and reached 28 per cent during 2008's closing quarter. About three quarters of extensions deployed in the above 100 segment were IP.

Cisco accounted for a third of all IP extensions in Q4 2008 and remains the dominant IP vendor in the above 100 space. Mitel showed well in the sub-100 market, leading the way with a 26 per cent share of IP extensions, which helped it grab a fifth of the total IP market.