Voice connections through customer-premises equipment (CPE) will constitute 73% of the total voice connections in Western Europe by 2015, according to a new study by International Data Corporation (IDC).
The study revealed that CPE-based voice connections will continue to be the most predominant business connection type in Western Europe.
IDC EMEA senior research analyst, unified communications and collaboration Isabel Montero said the anticipated double-dip recession and the rising uncertainty over the future of the eurozone have been the primary factors for businesses in the region to change their buying behaviors or to reduce the number of business voice connections installed to date.
"And although we are seeing a decline in traditional voice services in favor of the transition towards a hosted or fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) type service, it will be a long time before these services predominate CPE-based voice connections," Montero added.
In 2011, 27,681,310 CPE-based voice business connections were observed, and this will continue to be the most predominant business connection type in Western Europe throughout the forecast period.
The research firm noted that multitenant IP Centrex connections will be the fastest growing host-based voice connection type, covering 63% of the total host-based business voice connections in 2015, and the small business segment will continue to prefer a multitenant IP Centrex model.
Voice connections for hosted dedicated IP PBX environments will be primarily sold to or implemented in large and medium-sized businesses.
VoBB connections sales were 8,165,960 in 2011, and are expected to represent around 70% of the total public network-based voice connections by 2015.
Among the Western European countries, the strongest decline in CAGR from a low base number for all business voice connections were Greece at -0.7%, Italy with a decline of 0.8%, and the UK at -0.7%, IDC noted.
The Western European countries from a high base number of all business voice connections anticipated to have the strongest growth in CAGR are Denmark at 2.5%, Norway at 2.3%, Austria at 2.2%, and The Netherlands at 1.9%.
IDC expects a strong uptake towards a multitenant IP Centrex-based model, primarily driven by small and large corporate businesses.
