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Research Says European VoIP Growing Strong |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Monday, 30 July 2007 |
Research figures released by TeleGeography indicate that new nearly 30 million consumer VoIP lines will be in service
across Europe by end of this year. That's up significantly from what the researcher estimates was around 6.5 million two years earlier at the beginning of
2006. The company predicts,also that this rapid growth in VoIP acceptance will change the way telcos do business
in Europe, and challenges the historical stronghold of incumbent
service providers.
However, while VoIP services are
growing rapidly in all of western Europe, a closer look reveals stark
differences in subscriber numbers, market penetration and growth rates
across Europe, says TeleGeography.
Some markets, like France and the Netherlands have
already reached a large portion of homes; others, like Spain, have low
penetration levels, but are growing at a blistering pace, according to the report.
To
the dismay of incumbent telco's (which the report claims find the idea
of 'free' IP Telephony "a trifle communistic"), the adoption of VoIP by
European consumers is growing at a blistering pace. At the end 2006
there were 15.6 million consumer voice-over-IP (VoIP) lines in service
in Europe, up from 6.5 million in 2005.
That represented 247 per
cent growth over 2004 though when there were only 1.8 million VoIP
lines were in Europe. That represented only 1 per cent of households so
the 2005 figure of 6.5 million lines accounts for 4 percent of
households. 2006 with its 15.6 million represents 11 percent of
households and the mid-2007 estimate of 22 million households show a
solid trend.
VoIP subscriber growth is accelerating.
TeleGeography
says the number of quarterly subscriber additions grew from
approximately 1 million subscribers per quarter throughout most of 2005
to 2 million subscribers in much of 2006, and increased to 2.9 million
subscribers in the final quarter of 2006. Revenues from VoIP services
have grown at a comparable pace. Annual revenues from consumer VoIP
services were €583 million in 2005, and €1.5 billion in 2006. Given
current growth patterns, VoIP revenues should top €2.8 billion in 2007.
"VoIP
telephony services have rapidly gained acceptance in all of the
countries profiled in this study, but the pace of adoption has varied
widely. VoIP growth in France has been particularly spectacular: at
year-end 2006, France had 6.6 million IP telephony subscribers,
comparable to the total number of subscribers in Germany, the U.K., the
Netherlands and Italy combined. France accounted for 42 percent of
Europe's 15.6 million IP telephony subscribers at the end of 2006.
Conversely, only two percent of households in Austria subscribed to
VoIP telephone service, and less than one percent of households in
Spain had such a service," says the report.
TeleGeography
projects that VoIP subscribers in western Europe will grow from 15.6
million at the end of 2006 to 29.9 million by the end of 2007, and will
reach 61 million by 2011. This growth would drive VoIP penetration from
11 percent of households at year-end 2006 to 40 percent of households
by year-end 2011.
"Since VoIP service providers charge far less
for their service than traditional operators, it should come as no
surprise that VoIP operators generate lower revenues than their
switched counterparts. Western European VoIP service providers
generated approximately €1.5 billion in 2006, a sum that is projected
to increase to €5.4 billion in 2011. Compared to revenues from
traditional, fixed-line phone services, VoIP revenues are quite small.
Nevertheless, VoIP could have a disproportionately large effect on
"POTS" (plain old telephone service). Revenues from PSTN fixed-line
telephony are expected to decline from €44.7 million in 2006 to €25.2
million in 2011.
"VoIP's effect on traffic revenues likely will
prove particularly severe. Due to pressure from VoIP providers, we
anticipate average per-minute prices for calls from fixed-line phones
to decline over the forecast period. Pressure from VoIP providers has
compelled most European fixed-line incumbents to offer VoIP services
of their own; even many incumbents that rely on switched services have
launched monthly product offerings with free, unlimited calls to
domestic fixed-line phones," says the researcher.
Here are soime graphs to tell the story.
    
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