Frost & Sullivan’s forecasts that the number of remote workers post-COVID-19 will be 500% greater compared to the pre-pandemic number, creating a massive demand for video meetings. The number of video meeting licenses is projected to increase at a CAGR of 24.6% between 2019 and 2025, compared to a pre-pandemic forecast of 17.2%.
Room Jain from ICT said that the COVID-19 crisis has made remote work and hybrid work the new norm. During the pandemic and its immediate aftermath, in-office presence will be needs-based, and offices will transform from being ‘productivity center’ to being sites for employee engagement, collaboration, and building relationships. The shift to remote work represents a transformative moment for the meetings market and unveils tremendous growth opportunities for vendors that can differentiate on better quality and more scalable, manageable, and secure cloud services and devices that ensure an optimal meeting experience, regardless of where users work.
As well Jain mentioned that the video meetings will be a de facto expectation for business communications in the future, leading to a rapid rise in usage. Growth in the future will primarily come from all-in-one, easy-to-use devices and service bundles for personal collaboration. However, revenue growth will be dependent on a confluence of factors, such as the conversion of free accounts to paid ones. Rampant free offerings during the pandemic will generate an immense base of free users, providing vendors the opportunity to convert them to paid accounts in the future. The ability to gracefully wean users off of free services into a paid engagement will ultimately determine if providers will see a sustained revenue impact from the upsurge in user demand.
