Siemens Leads Digital Switching Market

BETHESDA, Md. -- Dittberner Associates, Inc., an internationally recognized telecommunications consulting firm, has recently announced the newest update release of its Global Telecom Technology Series titled THE DAI PERSPECTIVE, "WORLDWIDE DIGITAL SWITCHING STATUS AND FORECAST 2004".

The study reveals that Siemens leads the market with 17 million ports shipped since Dittberner’s last Worldwide Digital Switching update at the beginning of 2003. Alcatel, in second place, reported approximately 16 million ports shipped. These were followed by Huawei, ZTE, and Lucent who each command 21%, 17%, and 8% respectively.

The Dittberner study reports that there is a worldwide digital switching installed base of 1.89 billion ports which translates into just under 70 million ports shipped over the past year.

According to Lilian Tau, vice president, Dittberner Associates Inc. “China is still the major market for all of the suppliers with 22% of the world’s digital switching installed base. The teledensity in China is still around only a third of that in the US and Japan which indicates there is still room for growth. A disappointing market is India, where even with a population of over 1.1 billion and considerably strong economic growth, fixed line growth in rural areas has actually fallen sharply in the past three years. Lines added in 2003 were a third of shipments in 2002, while 2004 shipments were only half of 2003”.

The study reveals that in Eastern Europe there is also a considerable disparity between urban and rural areas. There are twice as many people with fixed line telephone in cities than in rural areas. The Eastern European digital switching installed base is expected to grow to over 135 million by 2008, an overall growth of 51%.

The report provides detailed analyses of the installed and on-order positions of suppliers on the world market and forecasts the growth of digital switching over the next 5 years.

Dittberner Associates Inc.

Siemens AG