Avaya and Cisco Lead the IP Telephony Charge

The worldwide enterprise IP telephony market increased 30.6 percent year over year, with Avaya and Cisco the leaders in Q3, according to Synergy Research Group's latest report. "Q3 2005 Enterprise Voice Market Shares" shows Avaya and Cisco experienced the most substantial growth worldwide, with each company growing its enterprise IP telephony-port shipments roughly 20 percent sequentially.

NEC and Nortel also showed healthy growth levels as well, with most of their respective expansion coming from the U.S. market. The U.S. market remained the largest opportunity for enterprise IP telephony in Q3, representing 47 percent of enterprise IP line shipments. In the Q3 2005 U.S. enterprise IP telephony category, Avaya finished first, followed Cisco, Nortel, NEC, and Mitel, respectively. In the Q3 2005 EMEA enterprise IP telephony category, Alcatel finished first, followed by Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, and Siemens. "In EMEA both Alcatel and Avaya showed strong growth, especially in the U.K., where they both posted double-digit growth rates," says Ryan Olsen, Industry Analyst at Synergy Research Group. "Avaya experienced the most balanced growth from both their U.S. and EMEA operations."

According to Olsen, other vendors that showed good sequential growth in the quarter include Quintum and Spere, though neither posted strong enough numbers to merit a finish in the top five. Cisco Systems is now the number one supplier in the global enterprise voice market, including both Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional circuit-based systems, based on revenue earnings. This marks the first time that Cisco has sold more IP-based voice solutions than the combined IP, hybrid, and TDM-based PBX solution of the other vendors. To date, the company has sold more than six million IP phones and commands a customer base of over 30,000 businesses.

"For Cisco to have entered this market as recently as 1999 and in just six years to [have] climbed to the number one voice communications vendor [spot] worldwide--among a field of very well-established competitors worldwide--is truly a great feat," says Jeremy Duke, president and CEO of the Synergy Research Group. "Cisco's sustained strong performance reflects customers' growing acceptance of IP-based voice solutions and showcases the cost and productivity advantages of these solutions. These results represent that IP telephony has now truly entered the mainstream."

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