Hong Kong (22 October 2009) - For over a decade, Wainhouse Research has been collecting quarterly data on factory shipments from video conferencing vendors. The data shows overall strong results for the video conferencing industry, with year 2003 being the only year in recent history with negative revenue growth. In fact, the years leading up to and including year 2007 were exceptionally strong.

According to the Wainhouse Research, with vendor data on the number of units shipped and survey data on the average age of installed systems and the percent replacements, the installed base of group video conferencing systems as of mid-year 2009 to be approximately 900,000 units. Polycom comes first with 35% worldwide unit shipments and in fact Polycom represents 65% of the current installed base of video conferencing systems including multi-codec and multi-display telepresence systems.

The telepresence segment of the video conferencing market has enjoyed significant attention in the past few years. Wainhouse Research defines telepresence as an immersive experience based on video conferencing technology that creates the illusion that the remote participants are in the same room. The three key elements that enable the telepresence experience are life-like images, proper positioning and perspective, and high quality audio and video.

Wainhouse Research analyzes the market trends, technologies, products, vendors, applications, and related services in the Unified Communications and rich media conferencing fields.