Driven by tough times, the worldwide UC&C revenue grew 25.1 percent year-over-year and 12.4 percent quarter-over-quarter to $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2020
Worldwide unified communications & collaboration (UC&C) revenue grew 25.1 percent year over year and 12.4 percent quarter over quarter to $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2020 (2Q20), according to the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Unified Communications & Collaboration QView.
Due to COVID-19, one thing that became apparent to many businesses and organizations during this period was the acute requirement to provision secure, scalable communications and collaboration solutions, tools, and applications to support a sudden, significant rise in the number of work-from-home (WFH) employees.
In the 2nd quarter, the UC collaboration market (including video conferencing software and cloud services) saw its revenues grow 46.9 percent year over year and 22.4 percent sequentially to $5.5 billion, with seats increasing 35.5 percent year over year. The managed or hosted voice or UCaaS market (public and private cloud) also performed well, growing 20.4 percent year over year and 7.4 percent sequentially. Enterprise videoconferencing systems (video endpoints and infrastructure) rebounded from a weaker 1Q20 to grow 21.5 percent sequentially and 26.8 percent year over year. The IP Telephony or UC systems (on-premises) market continued its downward trend amid the pandemic, declining 21.8 percent year over year in 2Q20.
“In the second quarter, organizations worldwide turned to video and collaboration solutions in particular to meet work-from-home employee requirements during an extraordinary time of crisis,” said Rich Costello, Senior Research Analyst, Unified Communications & Collaboration. “In the second half of 2020, and beyond, as some organizations begin to move from crisis phase to recovery phase, IDC expects that worldwide UC&C growth will be driven by customers across all business size segments (small, midsize and large) with interest especially in cloud-based solutions for voice, video and collaboration, mobile applications, and digital transformation projects”, added Costello.
From a geographic perspective, the UC&C market saw positive results across the globe in 2Q20. In North America (U.S. and Canada), UC&C revenue was up 15.9 percent sequentially and 27 percent year over year. The Asia/Pacific region, including Japan, saw revenue increase 12.6 percent quarter over quarter and 28.5 percent year over year. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), revenue was up 7.3 percent quarter over quarter and 19.9 percent year over year, while Latin America revenue increased 12.8 percent sequentially and 30.1 percent annually.
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