Videoconferencing remains relevant despite mixed market results

Recent IDC videoconferencing findings showed mixed results in the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14) with overall videoconferencing equipment revenue increasing 1.8% quarter over quarter but decreasing -9.0% year over year.

According to IDC, total worldwide enterprise video equipment market revenue in 2Q14 was $482 million, while the total number of video units sold in 2Q14 increased 7.2% quarter over quarter and 5.5% year over year.

From a market segment perspective, multi-codec immersive telepresence equipment revenue was up slightly (0.6%) quarter over quarter, but down -17.3% year over year.

Immersive telepresence units were up 2.3% quarter over quarter, but down -12.9% year over year. Room-based video system revenue increased 4.5% quarter over quarter, but decreased -4.5% year over year.

Room-based units sold were up 10.8% quarter over quarter and 7.7% year over year. Video infrastructure equipment, including MCUs and other video-related infrastructure products, declined -5.7% quarter over quarter and 14.1% year over year.

Regionally, North America (U.S. and Canada) revenue increased 6.8% quarter over quarter, but decreased 12.2% year over year in 2Q14.

Latin America had negative quarter-over-quarter revenue growth (-12.6%), but its year-over-year revenue increased 9.1% in 2Q14.

In Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA), revenue decreased -5.4% quarter over quarter and -4.1% year over year in 2Q14. In Asia/Pacific, revenue increased 6.5% quarter over quarter, but decreased -12.1% year over year in 2Q14.

"We continue to see the impact of delayed customer buying decisions, lower-cost systems, more software-centric products, and competitive cloud-based video service offerings on the worldwide enterprise video equipment market," says Rich Costello, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC.

"The mixed video equipment results are also indicative of the ongoing transition from a primarily hardware-based reporting model to one impacted by the interest in and growth of video subscription services.

On the bright side for the video equipment vendors, most or all of these vendors now offer, or are ramping-up to offer, cloud-based video alternatives to customers – in addition to their own lower cost, premises-based systems."

Key Vendor Highlights:

Cisco's 2Q14 results showed declines of -2.4% quarter over quarter and -15.2% year over year in video equipment revenue. But Cisco remains the leader in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 38.4% share of the worldwide market.

Polycom's revenue grew 6.7% quarter over quarter but declined -6.2% year over year in 2Q14. Polycom ranks second in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 30.3% share of the worldwide market.

Huawei's revenue increased 18.6% quarter over quarter and 8.6% year over year in 2Q14. Huawei ranks third with a 9.1% share of the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market.

"Despite the mixed results, recent IDC survey 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 is 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."