The VoIP industry is one to pay careful attention to in 2020, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring about rapid changes in how we work and communicate: currently, about 31 percent of businesses use VoIP systems, and when you consider the synergy between remote work and VoIP usage, and the fact that remote work is ballooning thanks to COVID-19, it becomes clear that VoIP adoption will grow rapidly in 2020. So what are the trends to pay attention to? Here are seven key trends to watch out for:
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1. A Rise In Residential VoIP Adoption
According to research by Statista, in the eight years between 2010 and 2018, the number of businesses using VoIP in the United States increased by a whopping 35 million — making the total number of companies using VoIP in America 41.6 million.
While this is impressive, what is more, impressive was the rise in adoption of residential VoIP during the same period: the number of residential VoIP lines increased from 28 million to 76.6 million — a staggering increase of 48.6 million. A trend to watch out for in 2020 and beyond is the rise in the adoption of residential VoIP. This growth will be driven by a lot of factors, including the following:
- VoIP calls are generally cheaper to all locations, potentially resulting in savings of about 40 percent for local calls and up to 90 percent on international calls.
- The rise in remote work is one of the key factors driving VoIP adoption, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented adoption of remote work — which will further drive residential VoIP adoption.
- The low cost of using VoIP and the introduction of better, faster, and more reliable internet connectivity will drive residential VoIP adoption; many of the best residential VoIP service providers offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, and some even offer basic services for free.
2. Mobile Will Help Fuel VoIP Adoption
When many think about VoIP, the first thing that comes to mind is the use of IP phones to facilitate communication. This is changing rapidly; however: an increasing number of VoIP service providers already have mobile apps that allow their users to take the VoIP experience to their mobile devices. You can expect to see this further increase in 2020 — a move that will help drive the growth and adoption of VoIP technology for communication.
3. VoIP Technology Will Become More Attractive Globally
While the US, and North America, are generally leaders when it comes to VoIP technology, and are projected to continue to be leaders in the foreseeable future, VoIP adoption is increasing globally, rapidly — and it will continue to expand globally.
In fact, you can expect VoIP adoption to increase in Asia, Africa, and other regions than in North America in the near future as data becomes cheaper, and adoption of new internet connectivity technology (such as 5G) increases. For example, while the number of VoIP users in the United States and other North American countries might seem impressive, other regions are quickly catching up:
- Japan currently has over 31 million VoIP users worldwide, making it the second-largest when it comes to VoIP users in the world.
- France currently has over 22 million VoIP users in the world.
- The Middle East and the Asia Pacific are experiencing rapid adoption of VoIP technology — particularly mobile VoIP.
4. VoIP Communications Will Become Much Cheaper
VoIP is already way cheaper compared to standard call services. For example:
- Businesses can save up to 75 percent on communication costs by using VoIP.
- The average business will save over $1,700 per month by using VOIP to make mobile, and long-distance calls over the computer.
- It costs 90 percent less for businesses to set up a VoIP system than to set up standard calling systems.
- Businesses can save up to 90 percent on international calls when they use VoIP.
While these are very impressive stats that show the cost-effectiveness of VoIP technology, you can expect VoIP to get increasingly cheaper in 2020 and beyond. As it is today, research from Gartner shows that new advancements in technology will make VoIP technology up to 5 percent cheaper annually.
5. More Major Players Will Get Into The VoIP Space
As the VoIP industry continues to grow bigger, you can expect to see more big players wanting to get a piece of the pie. A 2019 report from Global Market Insights, Inc. is projecting that the value of the VoIP industry will increase to about $55 billion in 2025 — this is almost twice what it was in 2018
Not only is $55 billion nothing to sniff at, but the fact that an industry can grow from $20 billion to $55 billion in just a few short years is even more significant… and something a lot of big players are paying attention to and will want to capitalize on. So watch out for more mergers and acquisitions as well as a new entry into the industry by big players.
6. Interest In Cloud VoIP Services
Cloud VoIP, or hosted VoIP, is a category of VoIP communication that has seen growing interest in the past few years, and you can expect interest in this segment of VoIP communication to increase even further as cloud technology continues to grow.
7. A Rise In Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use For VoIP Communications
There are so many ways artificial intelligence can be used to make life easier and comfortable, but the use of AI in VoIP communications has so far been limited — something that will be changing very soon.
We’re already seeing a rise in digital voice assistants that help businesses know how to interact with a customer based on their mood by performing a real-time sentiment analysis and the use of AI tech like Natural Language Processing to translate voice calls in real-time is just too promising to ignore. If there is one thing that is certain, it is this: in 2020 and beyond you can expect to see an increase in the use of AI tech for VoIP communication.
If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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