Economic Downturn Heightens Need for Cost-effective Hosted Conferencing Services in Asia-Pacific, Finds Frost & Sullivan

SINGAPORE, Aug. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Demand for hosted conferencing services in Asia-Pacific is on the rise as the uncertain economic outlook compels enterprises to reduce communication expenditure, and consider cost-effective collaborative solutions. The small and medium business (SMB) sector, in particular, will be the driving force for market revenue.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.conferencing.frost.com), Asia-Pacific Hosted Conferencing Services Market, finds that the market earned revenues of more than US$700 million in 2012 and estimates this to reach US$1,418.1 million in 2018.

The impact of disasters such as nuclear meltdowns, volcanic eruptions and tornadoes on business operations has led several companies to re-visit their spending patterns and adopt efficient solutions in the hosted conferencing services space.

"Service providers' efforts to integrate audio, video and web conferencing solutions with larger unified communication solution portfolios will guarantee superior cost performance and customer value, and accelerate uptake," said Frost & Sullivan ICT Senior Industry Analyst Jessie Yu. "As awareness increases, these solutions will become popular, especially in the SMB sector in developing countries such as India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand."

Nevertheless, several of these countries are not accessible to global hosted conferencing service providers, as telecom regulations favour local providers, thus reducing market scope.

Smaller countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines, are still not in the radar of key participants, whose short- to medium-term plans include just key markets such as Australia, Japan and India. Therefore, the low level of competition in smaller countries has made the few solutions available expensive and hard to procure, curbing sale volumes.

Meanwhile, the commoditization of audio conferencing services and the entry of new market participants have resulted in pricing pressures, and along with the significant fall in bandwidth charges, decreased overall market value.

Market saturation in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong also restrict revenues, and as new deployments get rarer in these markets, emphasis on quality of solutions, unified communication integration, and feature sets has compelled established vendors to acquire new companies and widen their portfolio.

"Mobility solutions with features such as social networking are the focus for technological advancements," noted Yu. "As the boundary between various communication technologies blurs, partnerships among vendors and service providers from different segments will become crucial to broaden market reach."

If you are interested in more information on this research, please send an email to Donna Jeremiah, Corporate Communications, at [email protected], with your full name, company name, job title, telephone number, company email address, company website, city, state and country.

Asia-Pacific Hosted Conferencing Services Market is part of the Conferencing & Collaboration Growth Partnership Service program. Frost & Sullivan's related research services include: Asia Pacific Enterprise Video Endpoints and Infrastructure Market, Asia Pacific Unified Communication-as-a Service Market, Enterprise Mobility and BYOD Market update, Unified Communcations Cloud Service Automation Market in Asia Pacific. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

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Asia-Pacific Hosted Conferencing Services Market
P6E2-64

Contact:
Donna Jeremiah
Corporate Communications – Asia Pacific
P: +61 (02) 8247 8927
F: +61 (02) 9252 8066
E: [email protected]

Carrie Low
Corporate Communications – Asia Pacific
P: +603 6204 5910
F: +603 6201 7402
E: [email protected]

Melissa Tan
Corporate Communications – Asia Pacific
P: +65 6890 0926
F: +65 6890 0988
E: [email protected]
http://www.frost.com

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan