The enterprise market (>100 users/extensions) was a strong influencer on overall market growth, recording a 15% growth in volume over Q3 2009 and 10% growth sequentially. Contrastingly the SME (<100 users/extensions) market continues to show more cautious growth rates with 10% growth over Q3 2009 and only 2% growth sequentially compared with Q2 2010.
The results continue to show mixed fortunes at a regional level, with North America and Asia Pacific showing the strongest year-on-year growth rates at 17% and 13% respectively, but EMEA and Latin America recording lower growth rates of 10% compared with Q3 2009.
Within EMEA, notably the growth rate of 10% over Q3 2010 was strongly influenced by significant rebounds in growth rates in Eastern Europe and to a lesser degree the Middle East and Africa. Contrasting this, the Western European market continues to be a challenging market for all vendors, with a growth rate of only 3% compared with Q3 2009 and recording a sequential decline compared to Q2 2010.
In Western Europe the situation continues to vary considerably by country, as would be expected given the current economic turmoil many Southern European countries recorded both year-on-year and sequential declines, as did the UK market. The French market, which had held up well during 2009, largely influenced by strong public sector business, is now feeling the downturn with strong year-on-year and sequential declines recorded in Q3 2010. Bucking this trend were the DACH countries, Benelux and Nordic markets which showed positive growth rates.
The fight for global market leadership was closely contested in Q3 2010, with Cisco and Avaya recording equal market share of 15%. However Cisco just beat Avaya to number 1 position in respect of volume, reflecting notably strong performance in North America and Asia Pacific. Panasonic and NEC retained third and fourth positions respectively, followed by Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Aastra. The significance of Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Aastra’s business in Western Europe, and this region’s continued poor market performance, influences their overall market positions at a worldwide level.
In North America, Cisco’s strong growth this quarter elevated them to number 1 position ahead of rival Avaya. NEC and Mitel Networks took the number 3 and number 4 positions. Conversely, in EMEA Avaya retained their number 1 position, followed by Panasonic, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Siemens and Aastra. In Latin America Siemens regained the number 1 position, followed by Panasonic, Intelbras, Avaya and Cisco. In Asia Pacific NEC continue to hold a dominant number 1 position followed by Panasonic. Cisco’s strong growth in the region elevated them to number 3 position followed by Avaya and Samsung.
At a worldwide level, growth in the market for IP desktop continues to outpace growth in the overall market with IP desktop continuing to gain share and representing 34% of total shipments compared with 31% in Q3 2009. In respect of desktop IP shipments Cisco lead the global market, followed by Avaya, NEC, Mitel Networks and Siemens.
As we edge close to the end of 2010, it is clear that businesses are still extremely cautious about making significant technology investments, unless there are clear cost and business benefits and the road to recovery is a slow and cautious one.
A key focus during 2010 has been the continued emergence of new deployment (cloud, hosted & virtualisation options) and payment models for converged communications solutions, these offer new operational and cost models for businesses and have been a focus of vendor and channel activity during this year and this trend will continue during 2011.