Report: Cloud hosted PBX, unified communications market could hit $12B

Infonetics Research has released its new market size and forecast report, Business Cloud VoIP and UC Services, which tracks hosted PBX and unified communications (UC) revenue and seats. “While sales of premises-based PBX systems have been stagnant to declining over the past few years, the market for cloud services continues to expand with businesses worldwide seeking out hosted alternatives,” states Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.

According to Infonetics Research, hosted PBX and unified communications (UC) services are a growth market that has moved well beyond early stages, with revenue on track to grow 13% this year and positive activity in every major geographic region. Myers adds, “Hosted services seats grew more than 20 percent worldwide in 2013.” Infonetics expects continued strong worldwide growth for the cloud PBX and UC market over the next 5 years, projecting it will reach $12 billion in 2018 with 62.6 million seats in service.

The biggest challenges for businesses evaluating hosted solutions are the wide variety of options available and inconsistent billing structures across the industry, finds the research. The report determines that "hosted VoIP services have hit their stride," experiencing broad adoption among small, medium, and large enterprises Interest from large enterprises in hosted VoIP services is escalating, with more companies evaluating and choosing providers.

The competitive landscape for business services is highly fragmented, notes the report, with an increasing number of PBX and unified communications vendors, enterprise agents, system integrators, and resellers expanding into the market along with traditional service providers. Further, the research sees vendors pitching hosted PBX and UC services alongside SIP trunking, as more multi-site businesses find themselves requiring hybrid solutions.

Learn more about the report.