~ Web conferencing and Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) to drive growth in a market forecasted to reach US$1.2 billion by 2018

SINGAPORE, Feb. 24, 2014  /PRNewswire/ -- The collaboration services market in Asia Pacific is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.9 percent over the 2012-2018 period to reach US$1.2 billion by 2018.

The collaboration services market is seen to be one of the leading segments in the Unified Communication-as-a-Service (UCaaS) market in terms of subscription base, with immense growth potential in the future.

Frost & Sullivan has evaluated the top twelve major and emerging collaboration service providers in the Asia Pacific region and assessed them using the Frost Industry Quotient (Frost IQ) matrix. The Frost IQ matrix comprises of four quadrants: "champions," "challengers," "defenders" and "explorers."

The Frost Industry Quotient - Frost IQ, is a proprietary Frost & Sullivan vendor assessment tool that accurately operationalises and captures the merits and challenges faced by technology vendors in their respective segments and geographies. The tool aims to provide key decision makers with a localised yet objective perspective of the industry in a highly heterogeneous business environment.

In the Frost IQ for the Asia Pacific Collaboration Services Market 2013, InterCall, Arkadin, PGi, Cisco and Telstra have been positioned in the champions' quadrant, based on a combination of market share performance and future growth strategies as determined by Frost & Sullivan research studies.

Jessie Yu, Industry Manager, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific says, "The consistent market growth is due to the leading market participants' continual service innovation, matched by strong demand from developed countries and new opportunities provided by emerging markets."

The manufacturing, banking and financial services, healthcare and transportation sectors are expected to be the key verticals in driving demand for collaboration services during the forecast period.

Yu added, "Within these key sectors, we expect BYOD and mobility services to be essential in driving the volume of collaboration services across enterprises in Asia Pacific."

The Asia Pacific collaboration services market is largely dominated by five main players in terms of their market share performance; InterCall, PGi, Cisco, Arkadin and Telstra. In total, the top five vendors accounted for almost 50 percent of the market.

From a future growth perspective, the Frost IQ recognizes the efforts of BT, Citrix Online, NTT Com, Verizon and Quanshi in gaining new ground in the collaboration services market, be it with regards to the innovative products or sound business strategies shown.

Despite the dominant position of the top five global vendors, new vendors from overseas markets such as the United States are making their presence felt in the Asia Pacific region. One of these is IOCOM, which is featured in the Frost IQ.

"Vendors looking to grow their business in this area will need to improve their product offerings through incorporation of new technologies such as video and offer a flexible, scalable platform to meet the needs of their customers," states Yu.

The Frost IQ (FIQ) for Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Collaboration Services Market 2013 covers cloud-based services using virtualized software in a service provider cloud in either private or shared architectures in the Asia Pacific region. The base year of the study is CY2013. The parameters used to determine relative positioning on the FIQ matrix include market share, product/service strategy, people/skills strategy, eco-system and business strategy.

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Media Contact:

Melissa Tan
Corporate Communications, Asia Pacific
P: +65 6890 0926
E: melissa.tan@frost.com

http://www.frost.com

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan