Convergence with Web Conferencing Drives the U.S. Audio Conferencing Services Market.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- The audio conferencing services market in the United States is continuously converging with other growing conferencing services such as Web conferencing. This trend aids the audio conferencing market to maintain its steady and moderate growth as it sees a shift in end-user preference from scheduled or unattended conferencing to reservationless conferencing, which is on-demand and helps reduce the time involved in setting up the conference.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (www.conferencing.frost.com), 2004 U.S. Audio Conferencing Services Market, reveals that this market generated revenue of $2.25 billion in 2004. Total market revenue expects to reach $3.13 billion in 2011.

If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides an overview of the latest analysis of the 2004 U.S. Audio Conferencing Services Markets - then send an e-mail to Mireya Castilla - Corporate Communications at [e-mail] with the following information: your full name, company name, title, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you via e-mail.

The continued rise in demand for reservationless or on-demand conferencing is posing a big challenge for service providers who want to differentiate themselves.

"The reservationless audio conferencing market is heading towards commoditization, as it is easier for customers to move between vendors without any downtime to learn a new system," notes S.V. Purushothaman, Program Leader for Conferencing and Collaboration, and Roopam Jain, Senior Analyst for Conferencing and Collaboration, at Frost & Sullivan. "One way to confront this commoditization is the integration of multiple conferencing services within a single price point."

Another constraint in the U.S. audio conferencing market is the increase in competition between vendors to attract new customers, while striving to maintain existing ones. This leads to new lows in the already decreasing profit margins.

"Further, the price competition between service providers and the entry of new competitors, results in low customer loyalty," points out Purushothaman.

Nonetheless, the convergence of audio, web, and videoconferencing is forcing service providers to develop new products or to cater to changing customer demands. Audio conferencing vendors are developing their own web conferencing products or partnering with other vendors to provide web conferencing services to their clients.

Apart from the Web conferencing services, there is also a need for videoconferencing, e-mail, instant messaging, and other collaboration services.

"The future of the U.S. audio conferencing services market lies in the offering of multiple conferencing services within one price point. Vendors with integrated conferencing capabilities can sell more minutes at a higher price when the services are bundled," concludes Jain.

The 2004 U.S. Audio Conferencing Services Market, a part of the Conferencing and Collaboration subscription, provides detailed revenue forecasts of the U.S. audio conferencing services market. The study enables the vendors of these services to design and develop strategies and position their products to benefit from the changing markets and obtain maximum return on investments. Analyst interviews and executive briefings are available to the press.

2004 U.S. Audio Conferencing Services Market

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Keywords in this Press Release: audio conferencing, U.S., Web conferencing, videoconferencing, reservationless, e-mail, instant messaging, collaboration services, commoditization, research, information, market, trends, technology, service, forecast