Growth of the UK telephony market skidded to a halt in the third quarter as SME spending crashed, figures from research house MZA reveal.

After registering 4 per cent growth in Q2, sales of PBX and IP PBX extensions fell back 5 per cent to 723,000 in the three months to September on an annual comparison.

The top three players - Nortel, Avaya and Cisco - all registered weaker sales during the quarter.

MZA said the collapse was particularly pronounced among SMEs, with the 2-10 extensions market plunging by almost 20 per cent. Meanwhile, the 31-100 market dipped by more than 15 per cent.

Things weren’t so dire at the high end, with growth in the 100-plus extension market hitting 1 per cent thanks to some deployments at specific large accounts.

Yet again, IP proved a high-point, with IP extensions growing 19 per cent in the below-100 segment and rising 13 per cent in the 100-plus sector. IP extensions now account for 24 per cent of all extensions being sold in the below-100 extensions market and 70 per cent of the 100-plus market.