"By 2014, the telepresence-based videoconferencing services market will be worth US$450 million globally, and the Asia Pacific could account for nearly 42 per cent of that," said David Molony, principal analyst at Ovum, based in London.
Ovum forecasts that revenues from suite-based video conferencing (including telepresence) are oustripping revenues for desktop video conferencing in the Asia Pacific and will be worth 53 per cent of total business video conferencing revenues of US$360 million in the region in 2012. Whereas in other regions like North America and Europe, price regression and competitive pressures will leave suites-based video at 14 per cent and 28 per cent of the market respectively.
Pointing at the phenomenon of vendors increasing their interest in the Asia Pacific, with Asian vendors also jumping on the video bandwagon in the last two years, he said: "This increased interest is due to the great potential in the Asian market, which not only boasts technology-savvy markets such as Japan and South Korea but has also seen pronounced growth in global enterprise relationships with China."
Molony is also the author of a newly published report 'Business Video 2010-14: Chasing Revenues in Managed Telepresence'.
Video conferencing solutions such as telepresence could ensure that these relationships can grow without the need for travel, said Ovum.
According to the consulting company, vendors are also moving into the Asia Pacific as the opportunity presents itself to share managed service charges as well as equipment sales revenues.
Among developments in the Asia Pacific this year from vendors, Polycom has launched a room rental service for telepresence in seven countries; Huawei has launched a telepresence solution to compete in its local market, where it partners with China Telecom to help distribute its equipment, and Tandberg has opened a T3 telepresence room in Hong Kong to encourage enterprises to experience telepresence. Service providers such as Tata Communications in India, Telstra in Australia and CPCnet in Hong Kong have launched managed telepresence in the region.