Nortel leads telephony sales
Market got off to flying start in the UK this year, research shows
The UK telephony market enjoyed a cracking start to the year, according to figures released by Canalys.
Research by the firm showed that 606,000 PBX lines were shipped in the UK during the first three months of 2004.
"It has been a positive start to the year. Nortel and Avaya have performed well all round, and Mitel has done well in the retail sector. In terms of IP handsets shipped, it has also been the biggest quarter yet for Cisco," said Canalys senior analyst Matthew Ball.
Canalys also detailed some of the smaller phone vendors' sales. The company noted increased focus on Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung, NEC and 3Com.
The firm has started measuring hybrid time division multiplexing (TDM) and IP system sales to determine which are being used for IP and which for TDM.
At present, hybrid systems make up 69 per cent of port shipments. Hybrid IP systems shipped in Q1 totalled 63,000 lines, while 359,000 hybrid TDM lines were shipped during the same period.
The numbers suggest customers are predominantly picking hybrid solutions, possibly with the intention of switching to IP telephony gradually. Nortel and Avaya led the market during the first quarter.
"We don't come up against Nortel very much at the moment because our channels are different; Nortel does a lot of business through BT," said Richard Pitt, sales director at Avaya's Small and Medium Business Solutions group in the UK and Eire.
"We are seeing a lot more of Siemens. It has a fairly structured channel, and a loyal customer and reseller base."
Paul Templeton, Nortel's vice-president of enterprise solutions for EMEA, said vendor sales figures tended to fluctuate quarter on quarter because the financial year-end of each vendor differed.
"Ericsson has been the big loser this quarter across Europe," Templeton claimed. "Firms such as Philips, Tenovus, Aastra and Ericsson are all struggling through the technology discontinuity. IP telephony is a big investment for vendors, and some smaller players will drop out."