"The anticipated double-dip recession and the rising uncertainty over the future of the eurozone have been the primary factors for businesses in the region to change their buying behaviors or to reduce the number of business voice connections installed to date," said Isabel Montero, senior research analyst, unified communications and collaboration, IDC EMEA. "And although we are seeing a decline in traditional voice services in favor of the transition towards a hosted or fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) type service, it will be a long time before these services predominate CPE-based voice connections."
The study also reveals that:
•There were 27,681,310 CPE-based voice business connections in 2011, and this will continue to be the most predominant business connection type in Western Europe throughout the forecast period. By 2015, CPE-based voice connections will represent 73% of total voice connections.
•The fastest growing host-based voice connection type will continue to be multitenant IP Centrex connections. In 2015, multitenant IP Centrex connections will represent around 63% of the total host-based business voice connections.
•Voice connections for hosted dedicated IP PBX environments will be primarily sold to or implemented in large and medium-sized businesses. The small business segment will continue to prefer a multitenant IP Centrex model.
•In 2011, the number of VoBB connections totaled 8,165,960, and by 2015 this business voice connection type is expected to represent around 70% of the total public network-based voice connections.
•The Western European countries with the strongest decline in CAGR from a low base number for all business voice connections are Greece at -0.7%, Italy with a decline of 0.8%, and the United Kingdom at -0.7%
•The Western European countries from a high base number of all business voice connections be anticipated to have the strongest growth in CAGR are Denmark at 2.5%, Norway at 2.3%, Austria at 2.2%, and The Netherlands at 1.9%.
"The double-dip recession and economic instability in various countries in Western European will be the primary inhibitors for businesses to invest and transition to a host-based model. Even so, we do expect a strong uptake towards a multitenant IP Centrex-based model. This uptake will primarily be driven by small and large corporate businesses," said Montero.
The study, Enterprise Voice Connections Update: The Adoption Trends for CPE, Hosted Voice, and Public Network-Based Deployments in Western Europe 2010–2015 Forecast (IDC #CT53U, April 2012), is available to purchase on www.idc.com. For more information, please contact your local IDC office.