According to a recent AMI study titled “Cashing in on the SMB VoIP Technology Upgrade Cycle,” market trends indicate that the VoIP industry may have some resistance to the impact of the overall global economic downturn. As companies cut back on IT and telecom costs, they focus investments on those projects that reduce costs and provide a clear return on investment. For this reason, they may succeed where other IT industries may falter.

 

Broadband VoIP Market Players

 

According to the study, Microsoft’s entry into the VoIP market with a new voice-enabled Office package will fuel the industry. Leading worldwide vendors of VoIP small business voice telecom systems, based on end-user revenue, includes Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, NEC, and Siemens. The study estimates that penetration of these systems into small businesses will increase from 5% in 2007 to 20% by 2012. They’ll increase for medium businesses from 33% in 2007 to 60% in 2012.

 

Vendors seeing the most spending on those systems in the U.S. include Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, NEC, and Mitel/Intertel. Spending on VoIP systems by small businesses reached $4.5 billion for small businesses, and $1.2 billion for large businesses.

 

Spending On VoIP By Regions

 

Another way to gauge spending patterns on VoIP technology is to identify which regions of the country where spending on broadband services are higher, since VoIP services depend on broadband as a backbone. The chart below, from the NECA report mentioned above, provides such a snapshot for NECA TS pools across the country.