December 22, 2006 -- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology continues to gain users in the residential telephone service market, according to recent analysis from the high-tech market research firm In-Stat.
According to data from the firm's newly launched Residential VoIP tracker service, more than 9 million US households now have at least one active VoIP user, with many households reporting the use of more than one VoIP service. The firm concludes that 7.9% of U.S. households now use a VoIP telephone service, up from 6.5 % at the end of Q2.
The firm says its tracker service utilizes a combination of end-user research and market analysis to estimate ongoing usage and market share among the major VoIP service providers, including facilities-based providers such as Vonage (www.vonage.com) and client-based providers such as Skype (www.skype.com).
Recent research from the service also revealed that Vonage and Time Warner Cable (www.timewarnercable.com) continue neck-and-neck among facilities-based VoIP subscribers with an estimated 1.7 million and 1.6 million active households respectively. Skype was seen continuing to dominate among client-based VoIP services with 2.1 million active households, while Microsoft (microsoft.com) gained more than 1.1 million active households as of the end of Q3, according to the firm.
Moreover, in a recent survey conducted by the firm, 49 % of current residential VoIP users reported that they had discontinued a traditional (i.e. non-VoIP) phone service when they got their VoIP services, including nearly 12% of respondents, who reported that their only VoIP service is client-based. According to the firm, this data suggests that the rapid growth of users for client-based services like Skype and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice is also having an impact on incumbent service providers.
The firm says that half of users reported using their residential VoIP service either in part or in whole for business purposes, including more than 40 percent of client-based VoIP users. For more information on In-Stat's Residential VoIP tracker service, go to http://www.instat.com/abstracts/voip_tracker.asp.
