2008 European Addressable Market for Conferencing Services

Abstract

Throughout the spring of 2008 Wainhouse Research (WR) conducted an independent assessment of the addressable market for conferencing services in 12 local European markets including the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. The objective of this study is to size the local country opportunity for audio minutes and revenue, and revenue for web conferencing and video bridging services. In this study the addressable market potential is compared to the forecast market probability for 2008. WR believe the addressable market potential changes year-to-year based on employed population, employment in positions relevant to use conferencing services, and local sentiment to using realtime communications. The forecast also changes from year-to-year based on prior year actual performance.

• Total population
• Total labor force
• Employed labor force (total labor force minus unemployment rate)
• Employment by service area - i.e. agriculture, industry, services
• Employment by title or role (i.e. occupations in executive management, company department heads, etc.)
• Usage and penetration of real-time communications - i.e. fixed and mobile lines (used as a calculation in market sizing, but not supplied in study)
• 2008 minute and forecast data for audio, web, and video conferencing services

In determining roles (employment by title) relevant to use of conferencing services, WR has made specific judgments on including and excluding specific roles. We have determined that any role or title that holds the potential to be either a moderator or participant in a conference call is in the “CSP addressable market”. For example, we have excluded petrol pump attendants and rail vehicle drivers, and included roles such as banking specialists and advertising specialists. Upon determining the number of employees with a likely potential to use conferencing services (based on currently known statistics on usage by role), WR has applied an audio and web conferencing minute usage calculation for each. This calculation is based on the average of a sample of companies using conferencing services. For example, the addressable market for audio minutes in the UK is calculated by multiplying the CSP addressable market by 900 minutes (8M CSP addressable market x 900 minutes = 7.2B minutes (versus 4.1B forecast in 2008). While average minutes of usage for an account holder in financial services, pharmaceutical, banking, and insurance may be 9,000 annually, usage by employee (total volumes divided by total employees) is closer to 900 minutes annually. When considering the total addressable market, one must consider that a user can at one point in time either be a conference moderator or a participant, but not both. So when considering the addressable market in a specific industry or for a specific role, we have divided the minutes amongst all potential users (account holders and participants) instead of just account holders (the total minutes and revenue comes out the same either way).

Sources include the International Labour Organization, Economist Intelligence Unit, European Commission Eurostat Yearbook, Office of National Statistics (UK), the CIA, and WR European Local CSP Market study 2008.

Information in this report is largely quantitative providing information on the volume and revenue of services in local European markets. Each subscriber to this report is encouraged to contact the author for a one-hour, online briefing where specific qualitative information can be discussed according to client needs.