Cisco breaks '2 Million' barrier for IP phones sales

This milestone phone was delivered to SouthTrust Corp., one of America's top-20 bank holding companies.

"This market milestone signifies that IP telephony is becoming a mainstream technology throughout business organizations worldwide and solidifies Cisco's position as the leader in this fast growing market," said Zeus Kerravala, vice president of enterprise infrastructure at the Yankee Group.

"There are significant and instant benefits from the deployment of mobility solutions such as IP telephony," said Andy Elder, Director of Marketing and Channels at Cisco Systems Middle East and North Africa. "This value proposition has proven irresistible to many of the region's largest organizations who are now enjoying cost savings and service enhancements which are directly impacting their bottom-line. Today, Cisco has shipped more IP phones than all of our competitors combined and is the clear market leader."

In August 2002, Cisco announced that it reached the 1 million milestone for shipped IP phones, an accomplishment that took the company three and a half years to achieve. Since then, Cisco has shipped an additional 1 million IP phones. The Middle East has contributed to this total with two of the largest deployments in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) being recorded in Egypt and the UAE. Today, Cisco's next generation IP Communications systems are helping more than 8,500 organizations worldwide realize the strengths of IP Communications, offering the potential to increase productivity and business flexibility.