Traditionally, the Japanese telephone systems market has been owned by NEC. There are various niche players with call centers, dealing room, and various other applications. The overall largest installed base for non-Japanese firm is currently owned by Nortel Networks. However that is quickly changing with the advent of IP.
In 2006, NEC held the largest share of the market at 28.3%. The current market breakdown is this
NEC 28.3%
Fujitsu 21.7%
Oki 16.9%
Hitachi 16.6%
Avaya 4.8%
Panasonic 4.6%
Cisco 2.8%
Others 4%
The market is a 87,200,000,000 yen market (758M USD market at 115 yen to the dollar) with 9.9% annual growth. So IP telephony in Japan is a sizable market.
There are actually three types of IP phone systems available globally. The types include
1) Converged IP PBX
Converged IP are systems that were designed originally for digital phones but have been moved to support IP. Manufacturers include companies such as Nortel, Avaya, and NEC.
2) LAN Telephony
LAN telephony is where a data system manufacturer has added voice to their systems. There are serious design flaw issues with these systems. The most predominant manufacturer outside of Japan is definitely Cisco but also 3COM who seems to be vaporizing over the last few years.
3) Pure IP
There is only system available globally. These systems are purpose built for true IP, they are application rich and easy to use as they really integrate well with the desktop. More on that soon.