Cable operators and Vonage are driving continuing growth in the US residential Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone market, according to new figures from In-Stat.
According to data from the market research firm’s US Residential VoIP Market Tracker service, more than 10.6 million US households now have at least one active VoIP user, up from approximately 9 million households at the end of Q3.
The emergence of the cable operators as a dominant market force seems to have slowed the growth of the client-based VoIP market, with only Skype showing gains in this segment during the 4th Quarter.
More than 61% of active residential VoIP users reported that they had discontinued or replaced a traditional (non-VoIP) phone service when they got their VoIP service, including a massive 76% of those who use only a network/ATA-based service like those offered by the cable companies or Vonage.
The ability to bypass international tolls continues to be a big driver of client-based VoIP services, says In-Stat, with users of client-based VoIP services reporting that 52% of their VoIP calls are international long distance while network/ATA-based VoIP users report only 6% of their calls are international long distance.
The percentage of residential VoIP users who report that they use their service for business calls either in part or exclusively continues to rise with 51 % reporting that they use the service for both business and personal calls and 4 % reporting they use it exclusively for business calls.
A recent study from ABI Research forecast that VoIP telephone services, which in 2006 had less than 38 million subscribers worldwide, should have a subscriber base of over 267 million in 2012 (see VoIP To Reach 267 Million Subscribers Worldwide).
In November last year, Continental Research’s Autumn 2006 Internet Report said that the number of consumers using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to make phone calls will exceed 4 million over the following 12 months (see VoIP Users To Exceed 4 Million).
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