A recent report published by Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, indicates that the carrier IP telephony market rose 7 percent sequentially in the second quarter of 2009, to $737 million, as service providers replenished equipment and license inventories and purchased infrastructure to serve near-term customer needs.

“Although the weak economy and lack of confidence in business conditions have severely reduced spending on network modernization projects, subscriber facing equipment has seen only a modest negative impact, and business voice-over-broadband licenses on both softswitches and voice application servers remain a bright spot,” said Greg Collins, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “During the quarter, softswitch IP business trunk, including SIP trunk, license shipments increased 33 percent during the second quarter and business voice or IP Centrex license shipments on voice application servers grew 85 percent,” he added.

According to the report, several smaller market players with limited exposure to large network upgrade projects, such as AudioCodes, MetaSwitch, and Veraz, gained share in the second quarter. Nortel regained the top market position during the quarter; however, some of its larger competitors, such as Huawei and Nokia Siemens, that have a relatively high degree of exposure to large network modernization projects, lost share.