Total worldwide enterprise video equipment market revenue in the third quarter of 2013 was approximately $576 million, which is up 8.2 percent quarter-over-quarter according to International Data Corporation (IDC). But the market results are mixed: overall videoconferencing equipment revenue has actually declined 9.7 percent year-over-year as of Q3.
“Video as a key component of collaboration continues to place high on the list of priorities for many organizations,” said Petr Jirovský, IDC’s research manager of worldwide networking trackers. “IDC believes that among the challenges customers are currently trying to work through are exactly when and how to provision their video deployments, as more software-centric solutions and video cloud service offerings become part of the enterprise video market landscape.”
Infonetics predicts the market to grow to $4 billion by 2017, but IDC pointed out that from a market segment perspective, the quarterly revenue growth was positive across all segments, while the yearly revenue growth was just the opposite. Multi-codec immersive telepresence equipment revenue was up 13.1 percent quarter over quarter, but still declined -16.3 percent year over year. Similarly, video infrastructure equipment, including hardware MCUs and other video-related products, increased 13.7 percent quarter over quarter, but declined -16.7 percent year over year. Room-based video systems increased 6 percent quarter over quarter in 3Q13, but decreased 5 percent year over year. And desktop video systems showed 4.7 percent revenue growth quarter over quarter, but declined -13.6 percent year over year in 3Q13.
“Interest in video and collaboration technology and applications helped the quarterly revenue numbers. But the lingering macroeconomic situation – including some softness in emerging markets, the recession in Europe, and the sequestration in the U.S. (i.e. budget cuts) – produced some cautionary IT spending that has impacted year-over-year video equipment revenue growth so far in 2013,” said Rich Costello, senior analyst of enterprise communications infrastructure at IDC. “In addition and most significantly, we are definitely starting to see the impact of lower-cost video systems and more software-centric products and offerings on the enterprise video equipment market.”
Regionally, Latin America (41.8 percent), Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) (22.6 percent), and North America (3.9 percent) all showed positive quarter-over-quarter revenue growth in 3Q13, while revenue in Asia/Pacific (3.7 percent) declined quarter over quarter. In addition, Asia/Pacific (13.7 percent) and North America (18.2 percent) showed the largest year-over-year declines in 3Q13, while both EMEA (3.4 percent) and Latin America (10.7 percent) experienced year-over-year revenue growth.
Vendor-wise, Cisco’s third quarter results showed a 17.9 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue increase, but a 7.6 percent year-over-year decline in video equipment revenue. Cisco remains the leader in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 44.7 percent share of the worldwide market.
Polycom’s revenue decreased 11.4 percent quarter-over-quarter in 3Q13 and was down 14.5 percent year-over-year in the quarter. Polycom ranks second in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 23.9 percent share of the worldwide market. And, Huawei’s 43.2 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue increase and 2.5 percent year-over-year revenue increase in 3Q13 were good for a third-ranked 10.1 percent share of the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market.