Hilversum, The Netherlands and London, United Kingdom, December 18, 2006 NEC Corporation (NEC) today announced that it has emerged as the worldwide leader in the enterprise telephony equipment market for telephony extension line shipments for 2005, according to Gartner’s November 2006 report, titled, “Market Share: Enterprise Telephony Equipment, Worldwide, 2005,authored by Megan Fernandez, Chris Lock and Isabel Montero.

Based on total worldwide enterprise telephony extension line shipments for 2005, Gartner reports that NEC ranked #1 in the total enterprise telephony equipment market, with a 12.6 percent market share. NEC believes this success underscores NEC's commitment to expanding its global enterprise communications footprint, by offering customers traditional and IP-based telephony solutions coupled with a clear migration path that matches customer requirements and ensures investment protection.

"We believe NEC's market share according to the Gartner report reflects our commitment to providing innovative broadband solutions such as our integrated IT/network UNIVERGE solutions that deliver a high level of communication functionality," said Kazuo Tsuzuki, associate senior vice president at NEC Corporation. "We will continue to develop flexible solutions that help our customers take advantage of application integration and the cost efficiencies that our new communications solutions enable, while maintaining a high degree of security and reliability."

NEC offers a broad range of enterprise telephony equipment from small to very large systems to effectively support enterprise and SMB customers whose requirements span from traditional TDM support to a full, 100% server-based IP deployment. NEC's UNIVERGE architecture reinforces NEC's reputation for delivering high quality solutions focused on technology, customer choice and investment protection, and lays the groundwork for the evolution from traditional telephony to integrated voice and data networking solutions.

"We think the recent Gartner report highlights NEC's international success as the market leader in enterprise telephony,” said Ad Ketelaars, CEO of NEC Philips Unified Solutions. "We believe this is a clear recognition of the strength of NEC 's portfolio of communications solutions and the ability to serve our customers worldwide."