The coronavirus pandemic has fuelled a boom in the use of unified communications and collaboration (UCC) tools according to beancounters at IDC.
IDC numbers covering the second quarter revealed that worldwide UCC revenue increased by 25.1 percent year over year (YoY), and 12.4 percent quarter over quarter to $11.5 billion in the second quarter.
Tools that could help workers continue to be secure and productive at home were some of the largest growers in terms of revenue. IDC broke down the categories to reveal that the UC collaboration market, which includes video-conferencing software and cloud services, produced a 46.9 percent increase in revenues. The managed/hosted voice/unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) market also improved by 20.4 percent YoY, and enterprise video-conferencing systems were also up by 21.5 percent.
IP telephone and on-premise UC systems segment delivered a 21.8 percent decline in the second quarter.
The report said that in the second half of 2020, and beyond, as some organisations begin to move from crisis phase to recovery phase. IDC expects that worldwide UCC growth will be driven by customers across all business size segments, with interest especially in cloud-based solutions for voice, video and collaboration, mobile applications, and digital transformation projects.
Revenues across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were up by just shy of 20 percent in the second quarter, with all major market experiencing solid double-digit growth in the quarter.
Those vendors that operate in the UCC market all saw their revenues improve, including Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, Avaya and RingCentral.
