Workplace Collaboration MetriCast 2024: On-Prem PBX & UC Market Share & Forecast: 4Q24 & CY2024

The Workplace Collaboration MetriCast 2024 market study 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, while some continue to utilize legacy on-premises 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, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE), and NEC hold the bulk of the market. A few other vendors and open-source options comprise the remaining business. Of the five with on-prem PBXs, 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 shares, 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 declining since 2012, it is still a billion-dollar market globally. The global market size for PBXs was $1.9 billion in 2024, down 6.6% year-over-year (YoY). Metrigy forecasts the market to decline at a 5.6% CAGR from 2024 to 2029, ending at $1.4 billion by 2029. 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 47.2% of revenue ($874.5 million) came from North America in 2024. Companies with over 10,000 employees represent the largest spend on PBXs in 2024, at $740.0 million, or 39.9% of the total.
• Based on 2024 PBX revenue, Cisco is the global market share leader at 47.2% share, followed by Avaya (18.6%), and Mitel (17.2%).
• Among companies using on-premises PBXs, 51.6% have no plans to replace their primary vendor. Lacking AI and analytics capabilities are the top reasons for those looking to make a change, followed by replacement parts no longer being available.
• The criteria that businesses value most with a PBX is platform reliability, followed by security and technical features.