Across the Asia-Pacific region, the IP telephony market grown steadily while traditional telephony declined gradually in 2006, according to Li at IDC. The latest research from IDC shows that Asia Pacific IPT market revenue had 28 percent year-on-year growth whereas the traditional telephony market had 5 percent year-on-year decline in Q2 2006.

Li noted that IPT equipment contributed more than 40 percent of the overall Asia Pacific telephony equipment market shipment revenue in Q2 2006. "Hong Kong is above this average figure, as its IP telephony market is more mature than that in PRC and Taiwan. She predicts the Hong Kong IPT market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16.4 percent to 2010.

Mobility push

A key trend has been the application of IPT to enable a more productive mobile workforce. Major vendors are integrating their IP PBX products with desktop applications and mobile devices to extend IP telephony features to desktop and mobile phones, noted IDC's Li.

"Unified communications is the shining star of 2006 with major vendors putting efforts into showing their commitment to this development," said Li. "But vendors still have much work to do on refining their solutions, as well as offering better end-user education."