Taiwan Takes To VoIP In The Home, Says Research Firm

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Riding a wave of interest for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, Taiwanese equipment makers fared well last year, posting strong gains in both the corporate and home segments.

During the second half of 2004, sales for enterprise gear climbed 53 percent. But that was definitively outpaced by VoIP phones going into the home market, which saw gains of 199 percent over the first half of last year, according to Taiwan's Market Intelligence Center.

Altogether, second half shipments totaled $403 million, and full year shipments totaled $585 million. In the second half, the market shifted from a 50:50 ratio of corporate to consumer shipments to a 30:70 ratio by the fourth quarter.

More outsourcing from Cisco and Nortel helped stimulate Taiwanese shipments, but average selling prices are already declining in the relatively new segment, with VoIP gateway ASPs dipping 3.9 percent in the second half and IP phone ASPs down 7 percent because of increasing chip integration, MIC said.

Of the consumer segment, MIC said: "There were two chief factors driving such dramatic gains. The first were new VoIP routers and Terminal Adapters rolled out by retail brands and telecoms. The second factor was the intense state of competition between cable and DSL broadband providers in North American and Japanese home VoIP markets."This quarter, the research service predicts DSL service providers looking to make further gains in the consumer VoIP market will place big orders with retail brands like Linksys, D-Link, and Netgear. Meanwhile, corporate users will also increase usage, spurring VoIP gateway and IP phone volume to climb by 78,500 ports and 919,000 ports, respectively, MIC said.