Rising demand for enterprise IP telephony fuels Asia-Pacific

Details: Michael Schwartz; Category: Trends & Forecasts; 18 August 2008; 8487 views

Internet Protocol is rapidly penetrating a range of key vertical and horizontal enterprise telephony markets in the Asia Pacific region. Although time division multiplexing still holds sway overall in Asia, high demand for IP from countries such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore has triggered a growth spurt in the region...

Internet Protocol (IP) is rapidly penetrating a range of key vertical and horizontal enterprise telephony markets in the Asia Pacific region. Although time division multiplexing (TDM) still holds sway overall in Asia, high demand for IP from countries such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore has triggered a growth spurt in the region which is expected to be replicated in developing countries as more enterprises seek the benefits IP telephony offers.

This is according to a new study by Frost and Sullivan analysts, published by Research and Markets. The study, entitled Asia Pacific Enterprise Telephony Markets 2007 covers KTS, PBX, WPBX, and IP PBX, providing detailed market analysis, revenue forecasts, profiles of the competitive landscape and leading market participants.

The high installation cost of Wireless Private Branch Exchanges (WPBX) has restricted uptake in some countries in Asia but the Key Telephony System (KTS) market has remained stable, witnessing only a slight decline.

Japan has ensconced itself in a dominant position in the market, accounting for the lion ’s share of the market revenue. This was achieved by its pioneering efforts toward the adoption of both TDM and IP telephony solutions and the highly conducive domestic business environment. Australia closely follows with a major portion of the accrued revenues coming from IP telephony sales. In this region, intensive marketing efforts, faster acceptance of evolving technologies, and geographical challenges have been galvanising attempts to seek newer ways to remain competitive.

"Intensifying market conditions, geographical challenges, and communication cost have become some of the major drivers of IP telephony deployment within Asia-Pacific," notes the analyst for this study. "Both small and medium businesses (SMB) and large businesses (LB) across verticals are resorting to the deployment of IP telephony to reduce communication cost and increase their workforce production." This has thrown open new avenues for IP telephony vendors who are actively spreading product awareness in the market to drive the migration of legacy system to IP-enabled or Pure IP solution.

The successful adoption of IP in Asia-Pacific can be attributed to the multifarious benefits it offers. "Businesses have now started to view the technology not only in terms of cost saving in communication but also from the standpoint of the strategic value it delivers to their operations," observes the analyst. "IP telephony is not confined within the realm of communication alone but offers scope for integration with other software applications and hardware to achieve productive outcomes."

The largest deployments are in the banking and finance sectors, where advantages such as multi-level client interaction and good return on investment can be leveraged. Accounting firms and insurance companies across the region have also benefited by the integration of IP telephony into business operations. The healthcare sector in Australia has seen solid adoption of the solution and new network infrastructure applications have been designed for the close monitoring of patients.

The offering of managed services has helped push penetration levels. As hardware technology used in IP systems begins to mature, it enables low-cost proprietary system elements and enhances manufacturing processes. Thanks to recent innovations, companies are now offering higher processing power on lower priced chips. Technologies such as peer-to-peer telephony and other solutions are tailor-made for the underserved SMB segments. High productivity gains, coupled with increased end-user convenience due to unified messaging solutions and presence offered by IP telephony systems, can accelerate the migration to IP.

The Asia Pacific Enterprise Telephony Market 2007 study covers Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, The Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

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