The Impact of the Top 3 Strategic Imperatives on the Desktop and Cordless Phone Market

Industry Convergence

Why

• Shifts towards Communication and Unified Communication-as-a-Service (UCaaS) is creating a compelling reason for enterprises to converge their estates.
• The benefits of collaboration can be enhanced by integrating high-end desktop and cordless phone devices.

Frost Perspective

• Move away from end-to-end solutions to a modular approach to meeting room and office audio is gaining traction as enterprises look to build flexibility into office desk and meeting spaces.
• Video conferencing, mobile devices, and the integration of desktop and cordless phone are critical in the new world of work.

Transformative Mega Trends

Why

• Organizations are working through new models of hybrid work. Many are looking to downsize office space. At the same time, they are adopting new approaches to how office space is being used, and in many instances, this results in a reduced number of fixed desks. Those remaining desks are expected to support a greater range of user needs.

Frost Perspective

• Increasingly desktop and cordless phones deliver enhanced audio and visual capabilities, enabling high-definition audio and visual communications.
• As enterprises work through new models for hybrid working, telephony endpoints will be refreshed. While the number of devices being installed will decline, in office use cases, devices will include more and more features.

Competitive Intensity

Why

• The market for TDM/IP desk phones is mature and characterized by rapid technology advancements, reduced customer demand, fierce price competition, and more recently oversupply.
• Increasing customer preference for collaboration tools and soft clients is driving down demand for hardware endpoints.

Frost Perspective

• TDM/IP desk phone vendors have been focusing on pricing strategies to build market share. This often results in compressed profit margins, and consolidation to an extent.
• To counter this vendors are tapping into industry-specific use cases, new product development, and increased focus on cost optimization and operational efficiencies to maintain profitability.

Scope of Analysis

• Enterprise-grade phones included in this study are time division multiplexing (TDM) desktop phones, internet protocol (IP) desktop phones, digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) phones, and voice over wireless local area network (VoWLAN)/Wi-Fi phones.
• Shipments are based on handset units.
• The regions covered in this research are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
• Revenue includes handsets plus related infrastructure such as accessories, access points, base stations, cables, adapters, etc.
• Revenues represent manufacturer-level sales of endpoints to service providers, distributors, retailers, resellers, and other distribution channels, as well as direct sales to enterprise customers. In the case of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) deals, revenues are attributed to the buyer that owns the copyright to the branding and intellectual property of the specific customized products instead of the original equipment manufacturer.
• Primary and secondary information, in conjunction with internal databases, has been used to analyze the market and provide the observations and conclusions in this study.
• Any previous-year(s) market size and market share estimates, if revised, are updated in this study.

Market Segmentation and Definition—Desktop and Cordless Phone Market

IP Desktop Phones

Internet protocol (IP) desktop phones are telephone devices that use IP-based signaling protocols, such as H.323 or session initiation protocol (SIP), to connect with IP communications platforms in hosted or customer premises-based environments.

While proprietary IP desktop phones mainly interface with the call control system they were manufactured to support, open SIP desktop phones adhere to the open SIP standard to offer compatibility and integration with most open SIP call control systems.

The study also covers IP video desktop phones, a sub-segment of IP desktop phones, which includes integrated cameras for personal video communications. Many of these devices also provide advanced support for unified communications (UC) features.

TDM Desktop Phones

Time division multiplexing (TDM) desktop phones are analog and digital desktop phones that connect to traditional or converged communications platforms.

The study forecasts both analog and digital desktop phones together in the TDM desktop phone category.

DECT Phones

Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) is a set of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) specifications for consumer and commercial digital cordless phones.

DECT solutions typically consist of a base that can connect multiple handsets to traditional or IP communications platforms.

DECT provides extended range and interference-free coverage for wireless handsets. Business DECT phones are covered in this study.

DECT phones can be multi-cell and single-cell. Frost & Sullivan focuses on vendors that address the business market with both multi-cell and single-cell DECT solutions.

VoWLAN/Wi-Fi Phones

Voice over wireless local area network (VoWLAN) or wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) devices enable businesses to leverage their existing WLAN to connect mobile endpoints to their IP communications platforms.

VoWLAN devices are equipped with802.11 radios for WLAN connectivity. This mainly includes telephony-first VoWLAN devices, although smartphones may be included if they have the requisite branch exchange (PBX) license.

In addition to the smartphone form factor, the study also includes badge devices from vendors such as Vocera.

Competitive Environment

Key Competitors

• Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise
• Ascom
• AudioCodes
• Avaya
• Cisco
• D-Link
• Fanvil Technology
• Gigaset
• Grandstream
• Mitel
• NEC
• Panasonic
• Poly
• Spectralink
• Unify (Mitel)
• VTech/Snom
• Yealink
• Zebra Technologies
• Cetis
• Denwa
• ESI
• Sangoma
• Uniden
• Other smaller North American regional vendors
• Ericsson-LG
• Fijiwave
• FunkTel
• Innovaphone AG
• Swissvoice
• Zultys
• Other smaller European regional vendors
• Escene Communication Co.
• Htek
• INCOM
• Karel
• Real Tone Technologies
• Xintgel
• Other smaller Asia-Pacific regional vendors
• Digistar
• DigiTro
• Leucotron
• Other smaller Latin American regional vendors