The global unified communications market size was valued at USD 56.33 billion in 2018 and is expected to register a CAGR of 16.8% from 2019 to 2025. Unified communication (UC) solutions help organizations provide their employees with real-time access to services such as conferencing, data sharing, messaging, and phone communications from several devices, thereby improving streamlining business processes. Integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with UC solutions has greatly aided organizations in realizing their digital transformation goal.
Rising deployment of AI and Machine Learning (ML) in the communications sector has created opportunities for team collaboration, thereby, enabling machine-to-human interaction. AI is continuously changing the way enterprises structure their workflows; for instance, AI is gradually replacing enterprise voice calls with virtual assistants and bots. In 2018, Cisco Systems, Inc. announced its plan to expand its UC solutions portfolio by integrating AI capabilities into its UC platform.
Increased adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled organizations to integrate devices and data with analytical IoT tools, resulting in an autonomous work environment. For instance, in an organization’s meeting rooms, sensors can track room use, including the number of attendees and systems used as well as length of the meeting. These insights can help organizations determine the right mix of video and non-video enabled meeting rooms to optimize room spending.
Large enterprises have witnessed rapid adoption of Unified Communication-as-a-Service (UCaaS) platform, a cloud delivery model that combines multiple channels of communication such as voice, text, chat, and e-mail, thereby offering a bundled solution. UCaaS bundles have proven to be cost-effective as compared to deploying a single UC solution. This has encouraged enterprises to opt for bundled services. The increasing need to reduce enterprise overhead costs and need to eliminate purchase of standalone systems have propelled the market over the past few years.
The on-premise segment dominated the market in 2018. However, demand for on-premise solutions is expected to reduce over the forecast period owing to high initial investments and growing deployment of cloud-based solutions. Moreover, these solutions incur additional costs of training enterprise staff for better management and operation of unified communications software solutions.
The hosted UC segment accounted for a revenue share of over 45.0% in 2018. A growing number of organizations have witnessed an increase in the adoption of cloud-based solutions for providing easy-to-manage and consistent telephony services across numerous office locations in different geographies.
Furthermore, cloud-based UC offers better team collaboration, allowing users to access applications on a real-time basis. Soaring need for managing and monitoring UC infrastructure from a centralized dashboard is expected to drive the segment over the forecast period. Providers such as Avaya Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are offering cloud-based UC solutions, which are delivered for public, private, or hybrid models. Such offerings are further driving demand for hosted solutions.
The enterprise segment accounted for a revenue share of more than 50.0% in 2018. Rising adoption of UC across enterprises to offer web conferencing, communication tools, and collaboration portals is expected to drive the segment. Moreover, enterprises are shifting from document-focused workstyle to people-focused workstyle to foster innovation. In recent years, it has been observed that companies are inclined toward the use of network convergence, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, and UC for realizing a digital workplace.
The healthcare segment accounted for a revenue share of more than 12.0% in the unified communications market in 2018 owing to the need for clinical teams to access data from remote locations and need for improving patient safety. UC has enabled medical professionals to offer consultation services via video conferencing and also collaborate with their peers.
The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) segment accounted for a revenue share of close to 20.0% in 2018. Deployment of UC solutions in SMEs is expected to increase significantly in the next few years. Availability of limited budget to deploy combined UC platform in SMEs has enabled them to adopt cloud-based UC platforms on a short-term contract basis to initially test and validate the benefits of this product type. This also enables small enterprises to hire employees from remote locations where the employees can harness the benefits of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, which is gaining prominence in several organizations.
Transitioning strategically to unified communications can help organizations in developing new workflow patterns, improving business processes, increasing collaboration through virtual teams, and reducing human latency times. When it comes to deployment of UC, large enterprises are particularly focusing on investing in Private Branch Exchange (IP PBX) while small- and medium-sized enterprises prefer voice over broadband or managed/unmanaged IP PBX.
The instant and unified messaging segment accounted for a revenue share of over 35.0% in 2018. The deployment of unified messaging solutions enables organizations to access a combination of voice mail, fax, and e-mail messaging solutions in a single bundle. The solution can be accessed from a user’s computer, telephone, or mobile device. Moreover, the integration of bundled UC solutions enables enterprises to deploy UC at a lower entry price, thereby providing them the cost benefits.
Increasing need for visual communication in enterprises is expected to boost the deployment of video conferencing solutions across organizations. Video conferencing enables enhancements in teamwork and business relationships across all industries by allowing them to communicate live with colleagues in remote locations. The conferencing software has proven to be a real-time communication technology that enables people to communicate and seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure. AI-enabled conferencing solutions are expected to keep the market buoyant over the forecast period. AI has created an added advantage to automatically assign tasks to employees and send notifications to meeting members.
North America dominated the global market in 2018. High adoption rates of advanced technologies in U.S. are anticipated to drive the regional market over the forecast period. Presence of several key players and increased popularity of BYOD solutions are further contributing to regional growth.
The Asia Pacific market is expected to exhibit considerable growth due to the popular trend of mobilization among enterprises. Growth in the regional market can also be attributed to increasing emphasis on reducing costs as well as demand for collaborations in the region. Sectors such as business process outsourcing (BPO), banking and financial services (BFS), government, telecom, logistics, and hospitality have been shifting to unified communications to enable efficient collaboration and communication.
Some of the prominent companies operating in the market are Cisco Systems, Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; IBM Corporation; and NEC Corporation. In line with growing demand for flexible office spaces, these industry players are offering various cloud-based solutions, such as voice and video conferencing, Instant Messaging (IM), and data management, which can help employees in sharing and accessing information remotely. They are particularly offering cloud-based unified communication solutions that can support live multimedia interaction via voice and video conferencing, can allow recording events for others to review the proceedings later, and can be deployed across various time zones in order to improve the efficiency of mobile team members.
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Attribute |
Details |
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Base year for estimation |
2018 |
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Actual/Historical data |
2014 - 2017 |
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Forecast period |
2019 - 2025 |
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Market representation |
Market revenue in USD Billion and CAGR from 2019 to 2025 |
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Regional scope |
North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and MEA |
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Country scope |
U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Germany, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil |
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Report coverage |
Revenue forecast, company share, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends |
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15% free customization scope (equivalent to five analyst working days) |
If you need specific information that is not currently within the scope of the report, we will provide it to you as a part of the customization |
This report forecasts revenue growth at global, regional, and country levels and provides an analysis of the latest industry trends in each of the sub-segments from 2014 to 2025. For the purpose of this study, Grand View Research has segmented the global unified communications market report on the basis of product, application, organization size, solution, and region:
Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025)
Hosted
On-premise
Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025)
Enterprises
Education
Government
Healthcare
Others
Organization Size Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025)
SMEs
Large Enterprises
Solution Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025)
Instant and Unified Messaging
Audio & Video Conferencing
IP Telephony
Others
Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025)
North America
U.S.
Canada
Mexico
Europe
Germany
U.K.
Asia Pacific
China
India
Japan
South Korea
Australia
New Zealand
South America
Brazil
MEA
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