The latest figures about the worldwide uptake of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones shows that they are set to reach record levels by the year 2015.
The research, by marketing firm InStat, shows that more than 40 million IP phones will be in use worldwide within the next four years.
Within the business sector, corded IP telephony continues to be the standard, and this is expected to continue throughout the period that has been forecasted. The best use of IP telephony is currently made by small to medium businesses, who have adopted the technology in order to improve the flexibility of their business phone systems and reduce operating costs.
The use of Wi-Fi internet phones is also increasing at a steady pace with such companies. However, Wi-Fi VoIP has not been taken up as much as expected on the consumer side, where digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) continue to dominate.
The research also found the following:
Deployment by business VoIP providers and Skype aside, consumer take-up has been slower than expected.
Cell phone shipments and business Wi-Fi grew by 40 per cent between 2009 and 2010, with hardware manufacturer HTC seeing the biggest increase in market share.
The research examined the emerging market for business and consumer IP telephony, and predicts the proportion of cellular, Wi-Fi and DECT phones to be purchased by both sectors. It also looked closely at the increase in demand for IP telephony and the size of the market for IP phones by the type of phone, to predict trends within the market.
Norm Bogen, Vice President at InStat, commented:
“IP phones are enabling businesses and consumers to use their telephone system for more advanced communications.”
He also added that many businesses were beginning to understand the advantages offered to them by IP telephony, and as a result, it was overtaking the use of traditional landline based phone networks.
