Global unified communications market to be worth US$75.8 billion by 2020

The global unified communications market is expected to reach US$75.81 billion by 2020, according to Grand View Research. Increases in the mobile workforce as well as enterprise mobility is expected to impact the global market positively over the next six years. The growing demand for smartphones is also expected to fuel market growth over the forecast period.

Increasing adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives by large enterprises as well as small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is a driving force for the industry, said the research firm, while the high initial investment required together with the need for interoperability across various unified communication platforms pose some restraints.

Further key findings from the study include:

• On-premise unified communications accounted for over 60% of the market in 2013. The cloud-based or hosted product segment is expected to rapidly gain share over the forecast period, mainly due to the high initial cost of installation as well as additional maintenance cost associated with on-premise solutions.
• Enterprises emerged as the largest application segment in 2013 and are expected to continue dominating the market over the next six years.
• Asia Pacific is expected to be a fast-growing market, which can be attributed to need for effective communication and collaboration, along with cost savings.
• Key industry participants include Cisco Systems, Avaya, NEC, IBM, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft, and Verizon Communications. 

Unified Communication Market Analysis By Product (On Premise, Cloud-Bases/Hosted), By Application (Education, Enterprises, Government, Healthcare) And Segment Forecasts To 2020, is available here.