Web Conferencing Grows by 35 per cent in Hong Kong

In a report made by research house Wainhouse, Hong Kong witnessed a 35 per cent growth in web conferencing in terms of revenue in 2010. However, the biggest gainer in the field was video conferencing, which grew by a staggering 72 per cent, even though the revenue was just $ 1 million. Audio conferencing continued to grow at a consolidated rate of 2 per cent in Hong Kong, despite a 34 per cent increase in the revenues of unattended calls in the region. Despite such stellar showing by video calls (1 per cent) and web conferencing (10 per cent), audio conference calls still account for 89 per cent of the conferencing revenue. The research house projected that the demand for conference call services will increase by 5 per cent by 2015, with 15 per cent growth in web conferencing. It will be followed by audio and video conferencing solutions at 9 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively. These figures confirm that web conferencing and collaboration are highly demanded by enterprises based in Hong Kong. Considering the demand, companies like Arkadin Hong Kong are promoting One Rate pricing models, wherein users pay the same rate for using the company’s audio and web conferencing suite. According to Wainhouse, Hong Kong still remains a vast market for audio conference calls, both attended and unattended. Conferencing service providers (CSPs) present in the region generated profits of $ 66 million from unattended calls and $ 3.8 million from attended calls. Despite lower profits, there was a 34 per cent increase in the revenue generated from attended calls, riding on a 14 per cent increase in the volume (14.6 million minutes in 2010 as compared to 12.9 million minutes in 2009). Unattended audio conferencing continued to be the mainstay of the conferencing market in Hong Kong, with volumes of 581.4 million minutes in 2010, just a 2 per cent increase over 2009. As per Wainhouse, in the next 4 years, video conferencing will be the fastest growing service in Hong Kong, which will start to slow down and recede in due time. A similar pattern will also be exhibited by web conferencing, which will grow at a consolidated rate of 15 per cent till 2015, as compared to the 5 per cent growth of video calls during the same period. However, by 2015, attended audio conferencing will reach saturation point, growing at 0 per cent and then decreasing slightly. This will be in contrast to unattended audio conferencing services, which will grow in the market at 4 per cent till 2015. Thus, it is clear that unattended audio conferencing and web conferencing will be the mainstays of the Hong Kong market.