The conferencing services market across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is seeing a significant shift to packaged services apparent in demand and vendor offerings.
In a new report focusing on the EMEA Conferencing Services Market, Frost & Sullivan put the value of revenues earned across the region’s conferencing services market at US$1.9 billion, and estimates this figure to grow to US$2.6 billion by 2019.
They key take-away from the new data, the analysts said, is that there is a growing preference among enterprise clients for integrated solutions, instead of standalone products, to support communication architecture and services.
As such, Frost & Sullivan said there is a move by vendors across the EMEA region to increasingly package complementary collaboration services such as Webcasts, team workspaces with other unified communication applications like telephony, voice mail, instant messaging and presence.
“Hosted/cloud video conferencing services that enable interoperability across endpoints appeal to a broader user base in EMEA owing to the rise in complexity and number of devices on networks,” saidFrost & Sullivan Digital Transformation Practice Research Director Adrian Drozd.
“Feature-rich solutions that support mobility and the bring-your-own-device trend are also popular among customers in these regions,” he said.
The data shows audio conferencing services are experiencing low growth due to price compression and user migration to bundled packages, while the transition to internet protocol (IP)-based conferencing is also reducing the need for audio conferencing services in the region.
In return, IP-based services is a segment which will fuel revenues in the sector, the company predicts.
“As the lines between video-centric and content-centric Web conferencing solutions that include video continue to blur, the revenues of both segments will take a hit,” says Frost & Sullivan Digital Transformation Practice Senior Director Ashwin Iyer.
“Higher sales volumes of IP-based audio conferencing solutions as well as hosted and managed video conferencing services will, nevertheless, promote revenue growth in the market.”
