UK PBX market woes continue

No sign of a brighter day for telephony hardware space, despite global turnaround

The UK PBX market continued to struggle in 2010's third quarter, despite double-digit growth in the US and worldwide, research from MZA has found.

During Q3, total desktop extensions increased 13 per cent annually to almost 13.7 million. North America was the key growth region, with the market expanding 17 per cent year on year. IP extensions now account for 34 per cent of the worldwide total, compared with 31 per cent in Q3 2009.

Cisco emerged marginally ahead of rival Avaya in Q3 in the race to be crowned the world's leading PBX vendor, although both firms held 15 per cent of the market. Panasonic and NEC held onto to third and fourth spot, respectively, with Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Aastra just behind.

The western European market grew three per cent year on year, but the UK, alongside France and most countries in the south of the continent, was one of the markets to post a decline.

The PBX space has been one of the worst hit by the recession, and the UK market hit the buffers in a big way midway through 2008. Sales have struggled to recover since then and MZA claims the market still faces a "slow and cautious road to recovery".

The analyst adds that business remain ultra-cautious when it comes to making capital investments. But cloud and hosted telephony have captured the channel's imagination this year, said MZA, and will continue to be a key focus for the industry in 2011.