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Infonetics Reports a largely Bleak PBX Market in 2008 Q4

Communications market research firm Infonetics Research released the fourth quarter (4Q08) edition of its Enterprise Telephony report yesterday. Highlights from the market research report follow.

- The worldwide enterprise telephony market dropped 14% sequentially in 4Q08 to $2.3 billion, with vendor revenue down for all types of equipment (pure IP PBX, hybrid PBX, and TDM PBX)

- The main cause of the decline is the lack of new business creation and business expansion due to the difficult economic climate worldwide

- Year-over-year, the overall PBX market is up 1.1%, with the IP PBX segments up and the TDM segment down as the market continues switching over from TDM to IP equipment and the economy tightens up

- Pure IP PBX revenue grew 25% worldwide in 2008, sustained by new product introductions such as NEC's new line of pure IP PBXs

- Alcatel-Lucent and Shoretel are the only vendors posting PBX equipment revenue gains in the tough fourth quarter, with ALU's revenue up 13% sequentially, due in part to seasonality, and Shoretel's revenue up 1%

- Despite a quarterly revenue loss, Cisco maintains its lead in overall PBX/KTS revenue market share in 4Q08, and in 2008, grabbed the lead for the entire year for the first time as well

- Worldwide IP phone shipments are down 9% in 4Q08, but are up from the year-ago quarter (4Q07) and for 2008