A Telephone-Company Gear Sales Up 11 Percent

Here's another number to drop into your business plan: Infonetics Research says that telecommunications and data-communications gear sales to telecommunications companies and enterprises hit $139 billion in 2007, up 11 percent from 2006. The projection for the global market in 2011 is $174 billion, for a spike of 26 percent. Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson lead the telcommunications market, while Cisco Systems Inc. leads in the enterprise space. Check back in 2012 to see how these projections have stood up.