Small and medium enterprises across the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan are on track to invest $50 billion on telecommunications equipment and services this year.
This is up some 5 per cent over 2006, according to the latest study by New York-based Access Markets International Partners, Inc.
The Indian SMEs have spent over $5 billion on telecom equipment and services last year. Further growth is expected from the cellular market which is set to grow at over 13 per cent.
"Our survey shows that 89 per cent of SMEs in India currently use mobile phone voice services while 11 per cent access email via their mobile devices. Other services such as audio conferencing are also on the rise, especially among tech-savvy MEs," said Nilanjana Mitra, analyst with AMI.
AMI's survey revealed that developed markets such as Australia and South Korea, and fast-growing markets like India and China, will account for more than 70 per cent of the APeJ telecom spending this year.
The market is witnessing a transition from traditional PBX to IP-based PBX, with most new replacements going the IP way, AMI pointed out in its report. While the base switch is going IP, the end points are moving to IP more slowly. This is due to the higher price of IP end points over digital end points.
In 2006, only 8 per cent of desk phones of medium businesses in a mature market like Australia had IP phones. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) will reduce the price, making such solutions even more affordable.
As for Unified Messaging -- which can be considered a precursor to the more advanced Unified Communications -- only 16 per cent of Australia's MBs are utilising
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