Workplace Collaboration MetriCast 2023: On-Prem PBX and UC Size and Spending Forecast

This year’s Workplace Collaboration MetriCast 2023 market size and forecast report shows continued decline for on-premises PBXs. For features beyond calling, businesses now typically bolt on collaboration services such as meetings and messaging from the cloud, but a few companies do still utilize legacy conferencing and collaboration applications. As with declining markets, the on-prem PBX business has collapsed to just a few vendors. In order of share, Cisco, Avaya, Mitel (including the recently acquired Unify), NEC, and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) hold the bulk of the market. Cisco HCS and Microsoft Skype for Business, both dedicated hosted platforms remain available on limited basis, but the installed base is substantial. A few other vendors and open-source options comprise the remaining business. Of the five, only Cisco and ALE have their own UCaaS offerings, placing them in a unique position of having the potential to keep those calling customers on their own platforms as they migrate to cloud.

This report provides in-depth details on dedicated PBX spending, market size and forecast, and vendor selection, along with segmentation by size and global region. Highlights of the study include the following:

• While the market for PBXs has been on decline since 2012, it is still a billion-dollar market globally. The global market size for PBXs was $2.3 billion in 2022, down 22.6% year-over-year (YoY). Metrigy forecasts the market to decline at an 8.8% CAGR from 2022 to 2027, resulting in $1.4 billion by 2027. The market decline is due to the transition to UCaaS and businesses holding onto PBX assets for 20+ years, with limited reason to upgrade core telephony solutions. Metrigy measures PBX manufacturing revenue only; it does not include revenue from management systems, service, or support in the forecast.
• PBXs are deployed worldwide, but 41.5% of revenue ($945.1 million) comes from North America in 2022. Companies with over 10,000 employees represent the largest spend on PBXs in 2022, at $869.6 million, or 38.2% of the total.
• Among companies using on-premises PBXs, 41.4% have no plans to replace their primary vendor. Wanting an integrated UC and contact center platform is the number one reason for those looking to make a change, followed by the opportunity to reduce costs and support broader integrations with other business applications.
• The criteria that businesses value most with a PBX is platform reliability, followed by security and technical features.