Market for Unified Communications and VoIP Continues to Rise Rapidly
Market for Unified Communications and VoIP Continues to Rise Rapidly by UCStrategies Staff
If Austin’s October 2012 ITEXPO revealed anything, it was that the demand for UC (unified communications) and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) services is increasing at a rapid pace.
According to a new report by Infonetics Research, enterprises are predicted to spend around $377 billion on business and personal VoIP services over the next four years. Although it’s most likely that NTT will maintain the lead in residential VoIP sales, the business market will be driven by SIP hosted and trunking VoIP or UC services. Between 15 and 20 percent of new IP PBX lines come as part of a managed services bundle.
Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics Research explained, “The SIP trunking and hosted UC segments were marked by strong growth and dynamic supplier landscapes in the first half of 2012. Beyond traditional operators and service providers, we're seeing a growing number of PBX/UC vendors, enterprise agents, system integrators, and resellers expanding into hosted UC offerings."
In spite of the fact that some business executives are still unable to understand how UC has the potential to enhance enterprise communication, the UC market has been growing globally over recent years, mainly because more and more companies are taking advantage of advanced communications systems that are more cost effective and offer more sophisticated collaboration features than traditional telecommunication services.
According to TMCNet, in 2011, the global UC-capable market grew to $12.23 billion; an increase of eight percent. The strongest and fasted growing UC sector is web conferencing and collaboration. This is predicted to continue to expand at 17 percent annual rate.
Some of the global newcomers to the UC market include India, which spent over $1.5 billion on UC solutions over the past four years, and is forecast to continue to grow at an annual rate of 11.4 percent. Australia has also jumped on the UC bandwagon. Their market is predicted to increase by 8.6 percent by 2018, in comparison to 2011. Leading global industries in the UC market expansion include government and banking facilities, insurance companies, education, and the healthcare sector.
Growing trends in business mobility, BYOD and virtual workforces are helping the UC market to expand. This growth comes hand-in-hand with a wealth of opportunities for UC vendors to provided improved collaborative solutions and for end users to optimize their own business processes and services. (CU) Link