BOSTON, May 24 -- Worldwide IP PBX revenue totaled slightly more than $87 million in 1Q04, up 10% from 4Q03, according to Infonetics Research's Next Gen Voice Products: IP PBXs quarterly worldwide market share and forecast report. Annual revenue is expected to top $899 million by 2007.

"Hybrid players tend to have seasonally weak first quarters, causing that segment to stay flat in a generally growing market, but gains in the pure play segment helped the overall IP PBX market to carve out double-digit percent gains," said Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research analyst and lead author of the report.

"We expect healthy gains to continue," added Machowinski. "IP PBXs continue to gain traction and acceptance with end-users. We recently conducted extensive interviews with IP PBX buyers for our User Plans for IP Voice study and found that there is a lot of interest and demand for the capabilities that IP-based communication systems offer."

    1Q04 IP PBX Market Highlights
    -- Cisco is the worldwide market leader
    -- Alcatel leads the market in EMEA
    -- Besides Cisco, Mitel and 3Com were the only other vendors to make gains
       in market share
    -- Lines shipped on hybrid platforms accounted for 64% of all IP lines
    -- Worldwide IP PBX lines totaled 1.4 million, up 11% from 4Q03

The Next Gen Voice Products: IP PBXs report tracks hybrid and pure IP PBXs and covers all regions (worldwide, North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, and CALA). Forecasts are updated quarterly. Companies tracked in this service include 3Com, Alcatel, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Nortel, Shoreline, Siemens, Sphere, Vertical Networks, Zultys, and others.

For the table of contents, log on to the new Infonetics Research Information Portal and download it at http://www.info.infonetics.com or contact Larry Howard, vice president, at larry@infonetics.com, 408-298-7999, ext. 225.

Infonetics Research ( http://www.infonetics.com ) is an international market research and consulting firm covering the data networking and telecommunications industries in North America, Europe, and Asia. Infonetics helps companies develop, market, and sell products and services by providing objective analysis of end-users, service providers, and product manufacturers. Infonetics has offices in Silicon Valley, the Boston Metro Area, and London.