Unified communications market

The global unified communications market size was valued at US$ 73.24 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.06% from 2023 to 2030.  The rise in need for enhanced communication solutions and increase in demand from end use industries as well as rapid urbanization. Moreover, the presence of a huge number of mobile users and technological advancements are also driving the global market.

Global Unified Communications Market: Regional Insights

Among regions North America is expected to gain major share in the global unified communications market over the forecast period. This can be attributed to rise use of Bring Your Own Device services, and adoption of IT in the region driving the implementation of unified communication systems. Moreover, growing adoption of IT in business enhancement is also expected to drive growth of the market in North America.

Furthermore, Europe is also anticipated to exhibit major growth in the global unified communications market over the forecast period, owing to rise in need of achieving operation and performance efficiency leading to implementation of UC systems in enterprise applications. Moreover, growing adoption of BYOD services is also driving the demand for UC in the region, this in turn is allowing several vendors to establish businesses across the region. Thus, Europe is likely to show strong growth in the market over the forecast future.

Figure 1: Global Unified Communications Market Share (%), By Region, 2022

Global Unified Communications Market Drivers:

Increasing adoption of BYOD to fuel the market pace

The use of BYOD model helps enterprises to reduce capital expenditure and operating expenses. Employees have to bring their personal devices for work, which further reduces cost of hardware or devices. Moreover, most of employees bear cost of data incurring on their devices, which helps reduce overall fees that organizations have to pay. The use of personal device is convenient for users; however, the enterprises have to ensure they provide support for multitude of devices as well as operating systems types that employees use. For this the demand for unified communications solutions is increasing across enterprises, which in turn is expected to drive growth of the global unified communications market over the forecast period.

Increasing mobile device penetration to augment the market growth

The adoption of mobile devices has increased substantially all over the world, in recent years. For instance, as per the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the number of mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions around the world has increased to 8,335 million in 2020 from 5,890 million in 2011. The major contributor to the mobile-cellular telephone market is found to be Asia Pacific region, with nearly 3,029 million subscribers in 2020. This in turn is driving the demand for unified communications solutions across the globe, which is expected to drive growth of the global market over the forecast period.

Global Unified Communications Market Opportunities:

Increasing adoption of 5G technology to produce multiple growth opportunities in the global unified communications market over the forecast period. The emergence of 5G technology has led to significant changes in the cloud computing sector. 5G provides low latency in connectivity for providing smoother communications. The use of 5G is likely to lead to seamless file transfers, high-quality and uninterrupted video conferencing solutions, and a smooth experience for cloud services. Thus, the emergence of 5G technology is in turn likely to drive demand for unified communications, which will create multiple growth opportunities in the global unified communications market.

Emergence of cost-effective cloud solutions for healthcare is also expected to bring business opportunities in the global unified communications market over the forecast period. The advent of such cloud-based solutions is leading to rise in adoption of unified communications by healthcare providers. The healthcare contact centers can establish their private branch exchange systems with the use of subscription-based united communication services. This is further likely to benefit vendors in the global unified communications market.

Global Unified Communications Market Trends:

Growing adoption of all-in-one cloud-based solutions

The market is witnessing a major trend of rising adoption of cloud-based all-in-one communications and collaboration solutions. Many businesses are adopting these solutions to consolidate their standalone solutions in order for achieving better control over cost and enhanced management and security. This in turn is allowing them to attain more efficient end user experience. As a result, this trend is likely to continue in the global unified communications market over the forecast period.

Rise in adoption of UC&C solutions in retail is a recent trend

The adoption of cloud computing technologies among retailers has increased rapidly for accelerating their sales, analyzing customer information, and improving the user experience by cost reduction and improved network performance. For instance, the retailer benefits are enhancing due to Software Defined-Wide Area Network, unified communication as a service for voice and other tools, and Wi-Fi-enabled Network as a Service for centralized data services in stores. This trend is thus, likely to drive growth of the global unified communications market over the forecast period.

Global Unified Communications Market Restraints:

High initial cost to limit the market growth

UC has various standard components, such as e-mail, voicemail, web conferencing, audio conferencing, and unified messaging. Several new elements such as video conferencing, document-based collaboration, mobility, communications-enabled business process, and social media. To use these component, a reliable network infrastructure is required, which in turn adds into cost of software and hardware components, in the initial capital required for UC systems. Thus, this factor is expected to limit growth of the global unified communications market over the forecast period.

Absence of interoperability among vendors to hinder the market pace

There are several vendors operating in the global unified communications market, and the absence of interoperability across various platform is likely to limit the market growth. As ability is a major issue due to lack of compatibility between software and components from different vendors, it becomes difficult for customers to select different components of system from different vendors.  Thus, lack of interoperability among vendors is expected to hinder growth of the global unified communications market over the forecast period. However, market players are adopting strategic collaborations and partnership to cater the demand, it is likely to support growth of the market.

Figure 2: Global Unified Communications Market Share (%), By Segment, 2022

Global Unified Communications Market Segmentation:

The global unified communications market report is segmented into Product, Application, Organization Size, and Solution.

Based on Product, the market is segmented into Hosted, On-premise. Out of which, Hosted Unified Communication is expected to dominate the global market over the forecast period and this is attributed to the growing adoption of hosted unified communications due to its various benefits. The adoption of hosted UC solutions offers benefits, such as, easier migration strategies, low cost of installation, minimal requirement of infrastructure, easier maintenance and updates, efficient disaster recovery, and lesser total cost of ownership.

On-premise Unified Communications segment is also expected to witness significant growth in the near future and this is owing to the growing use of on-premise solutions offering control over the communication system. The use of this UC solution model can offer businesses control over their data and systems, to ensure critical business infrastructure will reside in-house to enable privacy and security of data.

Based on Application, the market is segmented into Enterprise, Education, Government, Healthcare, and Others. Out of which, Enterprise is expected to dominate the global market over the forecast period and this is attributed to the increase in adoption of IT in business operations of enterprises for enhancing the performance of the company. Unified communication solutions are increasingly being adopted across enterprises, as these companies are implementing mobile workforce, leading to rise in use of mobile devices.

Education segment is also expected to witness significant growth in the near future and this is owing to the rise in use of UC technologies for improving the education system in regionally diverse educational institutions. The need for everyday communication channels is growing between several institutions located far-off places. With the deployment of UC technologies in education application, it can offer single channel to different institutions located distantly from one another. Thus, demand for UC solutions is increasing in education sector, which is expected to drive growth of the market.

Based on Organization Size, the market is segmented into SMEs, and Large Enterprises. Out of which, SMEs is expected to dominate the global market over the forecast period and this is attributed to the increasing use of unified communication services in SMES for reducing the capital and operational expenses needed for deploying a UC solution independently. Due to their various advantages, the deployment of UC services is increasing SMEs, which in turn is likely to drive growth of this segment.

Large Enterprises segment is also expected to witness significant growth in the near future and this is owing to the growing demand for UC solutions across large enterprises. The use of unified communications solutions is increasing, as these enterprises cater the requirement of multinational and multi-regional enterprises, and service providers focus on improvement of unified services as a service solution. This can improve the offerings such as centralized provisioning and service management and business process integration.

Based on Solution, the market is segmented into Instant and Unified Messaging, Audio & Video Conferencing, IP Telephony, and Others. Out of which, Instant and Unified Messaging is expected to dominate the global market over the forecast period and this is attributed to the benefits of instant messaging. With instant and unified messaging, enterprises can communicate and engage with clients and employees at fast pace. The demand for this solution is increasing with growing penetration of smartphones.

Audi and Video Conferencing segment is also expected to witness significant growth in the near future and this is owing to the growing adoption of 5G technology. As the use of audio and video conferencing UC has made international client calls easy, the demand for this segment is likely to increase in the near future.

Global Unified Communications Market: Key Developments

In July 2020, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise entered into partnership with Ivanti for delivering technology solutions to channel partners in Australia and New Zealand. Due to this, the company will be able to build its networking and UC offerings for enterprises and small to medium-sized businesses.

In December 2020, Avaya Inc. and the Dubai World Trade Centre entered announced video collaboration partnership for workstream collaboration and video meeting platform. This partnership will allow visitors to access content of more than 280 hours in various industries and sectors.

In October 2020, Cisco Systems, Inc. acquired BabbleLabs for providing noise removal and speech enhancement technology to Webex Platform. Due to this company is improving video meeting experience and communications along with conferencing applications.

In April 2020, Microsoft Corporation collaborated with C3.ai for adoption and deployment of Dynamics 365 Sales and Microsoft Teams in the organization.

Global Unified Communications Market: Key Companies Insights

The global unified communications market is highly competitive. This is attributed to continuous launch of new technologies due to ongoing R &D and efforts by value chain participants. Moreover, key players are adopting various business growth strategies in order to expand their presence on regional as well as global basis.

Some of the key players in the global unified communications market are Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Avaya Inc., NEC Corporation, Cisco System Inc., IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Mitel Networks Corp., Poly (Plantronics Inc.), Unify GmbH & Co. KG, and Verizon Communications Inc.

*Definition: Unified Communications, also known as UC or unified communications as a service (UCaaS), is a technology that allows organizations to communicate in more than one way. The technology combines voice, video, text and more into one unified interface. Its widespread use makes it a sizeable industry, featuring numerous types of services and products that help businesses improve communication, collaboration and customer service.

Detailed Segmentation:

• Global Unified Communications Market, By Product:
  • Hosted
  • On-premise
• Global Unified Communications Market, By Application:
  • Enterprise
  • Education
  • Government
  • Healthcare
  • Others
• Global Unified Communications Market, By Organization Size:
  • SMEs
  • Large Enterprises
• Global Unified Communications Market, By Solution:
  • Instant and Unified Messaging
  • Audio & Video Conferencing
  • IP Telephony
  • Others
• Global Unified Communications Market, By Region:
  • North America
  • Europe
  • Asia Pacific
  • Latin America
  • Middle East & Africa