What the VoIP market looks like today

BYOD and the growing demand for mobility is leading to growth of smart devices in the market and as a result the VoIP services market is experiencing growth across the globe, according to Persistence Market Research (PMR).

Additionally, technological advancement has enabled the network operators to enhance their infrastructure and use of VoIP on these networks has increased over the past few years.

Further, business consumers are adopting the cloud based hosted business solutions which are cost effective and offer high quality of service.

Moreover, key providers are diversifying their offering by getting into the market with new products, says PMR.

The network advancement in emerging economies offers tremendous opportunities for the VoIP service provider to widen their subscriber base.

However the lack of awareness among the residential consumer segment and lack of promotional activities by VoIP service providers is posing challenge for the growth of the market.

The VoIP services market is segmented on the basis of configuration, call types and end-use.

The configuration segment is further classified as computer to computer, computer to phone and phone to phone.

Currently the market is dominated by computer to phone configurations, however, with the rising demand for mobility among the corporate and residential consumers, it is expected that the market for phone to phone VoIP or mobile VoIP (mVoIP) will raise the revenue for VoIP service providers, according to PMR.

The end- use segment is broadly classified as residential consumers and corporate consumers.

These consumers can avail VoIP services either on a fixed leased line of on wireless networks provided by telecommunication operators.

The consumers can make international long distance call as well as domestic calls using VoIP services, says PMR.

Geographically, VoIP services market is segmented under four major regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World.

Currently, the market is dominated by Europe followed by Asia-Pacific. However, with the rising number of emerging economies in Asia-Pacific region it is expected over the coming years the market will be dominated by Asia-Pacific countries.

The companies offer several bundled services such as free text messages, photo messages and others to attract the customers to their services.

Currently, the major market share in terms of subscriber is held by Skype.

The market is highly competitive and companies have to suffer high price wars to sustain into the market, PMR says.