GIPS survey reveals global changes in video conferencing

Updated: January 07, 2011

Global IP Solutions has released a very revealing survey of over 1,200 senior business professionals in the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and China. GIPS states that they were initially motivated to perform this survey after they “witnessed a rising interest in video conferencing” over the past 18 months. The survey contains some surprising findings regarding the video conferencing market today, including the location and desires of most modern video conference users.

The survey also indicates that consumer apps are used more frequently than hardware video systems by professionals in the workplace (79% reported using consumer apps rather than hardware). Over half the survey participants in all four nations cited clear communication or the reduction of travel time as their reasons for using conferencing. Interestingly, however, audio quality was not as substantial a concern for conferencing users as video quality and reliability.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the survey, however, was the data regarding consumers’ locations. Although a majority of survey participants had used video conferencing before in every country except Japan, China had by far the highest number of established users, at over 80%. Even more interesting, a total of 90% of professionals in Asia overall reported using video conferencing, compared to only 50% in the U.S. 80% of Chinese businesses stated the intention of deploying voice conferencing in the next 18 months, compared to only 40% of U.S. businesses in the next 6-24 months. According to GIPS, video conferencing today is clearly on the move, both upwards and outwards. Its customer base is not only growing but shifting geographically, and video conferencing service providers must look across the Pacific for the markets of tomorrow.