Boom Time for Videoconferencing in Asia Pac

The second quarter of 2011 saw videoconferencing and telepresence equipment market revenues reach USD246 million in the APAC region, having grown at an annualized rate of 40%, according to the latest data from Synergy Research Group. The market is benefitting from the confluence of four factors – maturing technology, falling technology costs, a drive to reduce operating costs and a desire to increase the efficiency of executive-level management. It is also clear that the market is not restricted to countries with the most highly developed economies, as revenues from China accounted for 32% of the regional total and were greater than Japan, South Korea and Australia combined. Southeast Asia accounted for 17% of the regional total.

Three technology vendors in particular are benefitting from this burgeoning market with Cisco, Huawei and Polycom each accounting for about a quarter of videoconferencing and telepresence equipment revenues in the APAC region. In Q2 Cisco had a slight lead in market share, while in Q1 Polycom had the lead and in the last quarter of 2010 it was Huawei who had the highest revenues. Globally, however, Cisco does have a clear lead over its two main rivals.

Simple web-based conferencing is also enjoying regional growth rates of around 40%, but there is a big difference in the two markets, even if some of the market drivers are similar. “To use a travel analogy, if using simple web-based conferencing technology is like taking a ride on a bus then using videoconferencing and telepresence room-based systems is like driving a Ferrari, which mostly limits users to executives and government ministers” said Synergy Research Group’s Jeremy Duke. “But if you look ahead and imagine service providers offering videoconferencing as a cloud-based application then the economics could change dramatically, bringing the technology within reach of much larger number of business users.”

Synergy Research Group provides detailed country-level data, analysis, and forecasts for networking and telecom markets across the Asia-Pac region. Its Asian research partner CNCdata regularly surveys its database of 1,200,000 technology users in 400,000 businesses across the region to gain in-depth knowledge of buying intentions. For more information, please contact hgallo@srgresearch.com.