Market research firm Infonetics Research released its biannual VoIP and UC Services and Subscribers report, which tracks business and residential/SOHO voice over IP services and includes a North America Business VoIP Services Leadership Matrix that analyzes and ranks the top service providers in the VoIP business services market.

ANALYST NOTE

"Demand for residential and business VoIP services continues to grow even as spending in other communication areas tightens. For the first half of 2009, the worldwide VoIP services market grew to $20.7 billion. Residential VoIP services remain healthy, comprising the majority of worldwide VoIP services revenue, and subscribers are up 14% from the end of 2008. On the business VoIP side, while managed IP PBX revenue growth has slowed in line with IP PBX shipments, we are expecting IP Centrex and hosted UC service revenue to grow 26% year-over-year in 2009," explains Diane Myers, directing analyst for service provider VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

• IP connectivity services currently make up about a third of total VoIP business service revenue, growing to 40% of the total by 2013 (managed IP PBX services and hosted VoIP and UC services make up the balance)
• The current sweet spot of the North American IP Centrex market is small business (those with fewer than 100 employees)
  - Roughly two-thirds of all IP Centrex seats sold in the first half of 2009 went to small businesses
• While the largest VoIP services opportunities are in North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), demand for VoIP services is growing fast in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America
• For the first half of 2009, Japan's NTT, France Telecom, and Comcast in North America retain their leadership as the world's largest residential VoIP service providers, together holding nearly 20% of the world's VoIP subscribers
• The number of residential/SOHO VoIP subscribers is forecast to top 225 million by 2013

REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics' VoIP and UC services report provides worldwide and regional market size, forecasts, and analysis of residential VoIP services, business VoIP and UC services, and residential/SOHO VoIP subscribers. Business voice services tracked include managed IP PBX services, hosted VoIP and unified communication services (IP Centrex by business size, UC applications, UC telephony), and IP connectivity services (VoIP VPN/IP access, SIP trunking, IP integrated access).

The report includes regional consumer VoIP subscriber market share, tracking AT&T, BT, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Embratel NetFone, France Télécom, Free, KDDI, LG Dacom, LibertyGlobal, neuf cegetel, NTT, ONO, PCCW, Portugal Telecom, Rogers, SK Broadband, SoftBank, Tele2 Netherlands, Telecom Italia, Time Warner Cable, Vonage, and many others.

The report includes a VoIP Service Provider Leadership Matrix, which provides rankings of service providers currently leading the North American market and best positioned to succeed long-term. The leadership matrix ranks the top 10 IP Centrex service providers and top 9 IP connectivity providers based on criteria such as number of IP Centrex subscribers, installed base of IP connectivity lines/trunks, financial stability, market strategy, service capabilities, and support options.