According to MIC (Market Intelligence Center), an ICT industry research institute based in Taipei, Taiwanese enterprise VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) equipment shipment value grew 25.6% year-on-year to US$88.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. IP phone shipment volume reached approximately 1.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2006, up 47.8% from the previous year. Enterprise VoIP gateway shipment volume, consisting mainly of 4- to 32-port products, soared 129.6% to 320,700 ports.

Although prices of some value-line IP phones had dipped below US$40, major brand-name vendors, such as Cisco and Nortel, expanded their product lines and placed orders for mid-range and high-end models tagged over US$100 with Taiwanese makers, moderating the overall price decline of Taiwanese IP phones in the fourth quarter. Most of the Taiwanese IP phone shipment was for North America and Western Europe, both major markets for major brand-name vendors, whereas Taiwanese VoIP gateway makers made significant progress in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

In the Taiwanese enterprise VoIP equipment industry, TI retained the highest share for enterprise VoIP gateway chips, reaching 66.6% in the fourth quarter, followed by AudioCodes, Mindspeed, and Motorola. For IP phone chips, TI and Broadcom accounted for 58.2% and 37.5% respectively, followed by Myson, Infineon-ADMtek, and PMC-Sierra.

The rapid proliferation of VoIP service applications has attracted the aggressive engagement of network, communications, consumer electronics, and PC equipment makers. Judging from the VoIP services being pushed, VoIP service providers are focusing on the value-added applications of wireless transmission and audio-visual content. Such a development paves the way for chipmakers boasting wireless or audio-visual solutions to enter the VoIP market. In 2006, Marvell, Atheros, and Freescale crossed over into the VoIP industry, helping VoIP hardware and software makers launch Wi-Fi phones or video phones.

In the first half of 2007, with Microsoft pushing enterprise voice services, competition in the VoIP market is expected to become even more fierce. Major telecom carriers worldwide, including BT (British Telecommunications), Spanish Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, KT (Korea Telecom), and Chunghwa Telecom, are set to start or expand their NGN (Next Generation Network) deployment in 2007, integrating data, voice, and video services under a common IP network architecture, thereby providing corporate clients more diverse services and applications.

Benefiting from expanding market demand and contract-production orders from major brand-name vendors, Taiwanese IP phone shipment volume is expected to grow 49.4% and 52.4% year-on-year in the first and second quarters of 2007 to 1.57 million and 1.70 million units respectively. Chunghwa Telecom's VoIP tender is expected to trigger a wave of VoIP equipment procurement among Taiwanese fixed-line carriers, benefiting some Taiwanese VoIP gateway makers. It is forecasted that Taiwanese VoIP gateway shipment volume will leap 69% and 54.6% year-on-year in the first and second quarters of 2007 to 327,100 and 376,200 ports respectively. Total shipment value of the Taiwanese enterprise VoIP equipment industry is expected to advance 30% year-on-year to US$173 million in the first half of 2007.

More information can be found in the following MIC report.  The Taiwanese Enterprise VoIP Equipment Industry, 1Q 2007

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