Cisco leads videoconferencing equipment market as revenue rises

Overall videoconferencing equipment revenue has increased 9.6 per cent during the third quarter of 2014, compared to the second quarter, but decreasing -7.7 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2013.

International Data Corporation (IDC) reports that the total worldwide enterprise video equipment market revenue in 3Q14 was $529 million, up from $483 million in 2Q14 while the total number of videoconferencing units sold in 3Q14 increased 16.6% quarter over quarter and 16.9% year over year.

"Some good news is that the worldwide videoconferencing equipment market enjoyed positive quarter-over-quarter revenue growth across all its major market segments in 3Q14, although year-over-year revenue growth was mostly down, with a few exceptions," says Rich Costello, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, IDC.

"The video equipment market results are reflective of the ongoing market transition from a primarily hardware-based reporting model to one impacted by the growing interest in more software-based solutions and video subscription services."

From a market segment perspective multi-codec telepresence equipment revenue ($34 million) was up 15.1% quarter over quarter, but down -15.8% year over year while room-based video system revenue ($347 million) increased 11.3% quarter over quarter and 0.6% year over year.

Personal videoconferencing systems revenue ($35 million) – including executive desktop systems – increased 4.2% quarter over quarter, but declined significantly year over year (-23.1%).

Meanwhile Video infrastructure equipment revenue ($113 million) – including MCUs and other video-related infrastructure – increased 4.7% quarter over quarter, but declined -20.4% year over year.

Regionally in 3Q14, Asia/Pacific, revenue increased both quarter over quarter (11.0%) and year over year (1.9%).

Key Vendor Updates:

Cisco's 3Q14 results showed an 18.3% revenue increase over the second quarter, but a -14.9% year-over-year decline.

According to the findings, Cisco remained the leader in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 41.4% share of the worldwide market.

Polycom's revenue on the other hand decreased -2.2% quarter over quarter, but increased 3.3% year over year in 3Q14.

Polycom ranked second in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 26.9% share of the worldwide market.

Finally, Huawei's quarter-over-quarter revenue increased 29.6%, but decreased slightly (-1.7%) year over year in 3Q14. Huawei ranked third with a 10.8% share of the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market.

"Recent IDC survey adoption data indicates that video is still a key component of collaboration and continues to place high on the list of priorities for many organisations," adds Petr Jirovsky, Research Manager, Worldwide Networking Trackers.

"IDC believes that among the challenges customers are currently working through are determining exactly when and how to provision their video deployments as more software-centric and cloud-based service offerings become part of the enterprise video market landscape."