Web Conferencing Will Drive the Growth, But Audio Conferencing Is Top Bill for 2010, Says AMI

NEW YORK. The total US audio and web conferencing market was $1.5 billion in 2009, AMI research estimates. Web conferencing is expected to drive spending over the next five years, boasting a 22 percent CAGR, while audio conferencing is expected to grow a more modest four percent YOY, according to a new report titled "Audio and Web Conferencing: Usage, Spending, Distribution, Market and Growth."

"In our view, the key drivers and motivators to support audio and web conferencing adoption include businesses' greater interest in opex savings (vs. cap ex); productivity improvement, mobility/telecommuting; and convenient collaborative communications." The report indicates the total market for audio and web conferencing will grow at a five-year CAGR of 12 percent to $2.7 billion in 2014. In fact, most small businesses plan to use audio conferencing over the next 12 months, according to this report.

"Audio conferencing tends to be more widely installed than web conferencing by SMBs," said Karen Nielsen, Senior Consultant at AMI-Partners. "The SB market leads the growth in conferencing spending. We would expect the greatest growth in usage for both audio and web conferencing to come from the small business segment with under 100 employees." The report addresses key areas pertaining to web and audio conferencing adoption/plans, spending forecast/outlook, purchase channels for conferencing services, conferencing market structure/players (including AT&T, Cisco, Microsoft, iVocalize, DimDIm, and Zoho Meeting), and implications for growth and outlook. Employee size and vertical industry perspectives are provided as well.

"In our view, the key drivers and motivators to support audio and web conferencing adoption include businesses' greater interest in opex savings (vs. cap ex); productivity improvement, mobility/telecommuting; and convenient collaborative communications. On the other hand, there are several inhibitors to conferencing adoption. Market confusion/knowledge gap (SMBs don't fully understand the suite of conferencing solutions); over-packaging of conferencing solutions (SMBs are more comfortable buying gradually); and SMBs being not quite able to discern the business justification and focus instead on the costs," said Ms. Nielsen.

As UC continues to proliferate in the SMB space, AMI will be publishing several related studies, including "Video Conferencing, Hosted VoIP, CPE-IP-PBX Adoption Market Opportunity and Outlook" and "Smart Phones and Mobile Applications," among others.