The growth, confirmed in data published this week by Synergy Research Group, was unsurprisingly attributed to Covid-19 lockdowns. However, while incumbent players RingCentral, Mitel and 8x8 contributed half of all UCaaS revenues, it was "Microsoft and the emergence of Zoom" primarily driving new growth over the studied period.
Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder and chief analyst said: “We have seen a common theme among a variety of cloud markets over the last two quarters, with the pandemic helping to boost what were already strong growth rates. UCaaS has followed a similar trend with the year-on-year growth rate in Q3 being five percentage points higher than what we saw at the beginning of 2020."
Synergy's insight found that while total UCaaS subscriber numbers are "now approaching 14 million", they have doubled since early 2018 with a concentration of users in the US, which now accounts for more than three quarters of all UCaaS subscribers.
Meanwhile, the report said market development is "still in the early days in most other countries". It noted that RingCentral is "the clear market leader" at more than twice the size of its nearest competitor, thanks to its strength across multiple service segments and customer groups. It is the leader with small businesses and the mid-market and is also the joint leader with enterprise customers, alongside Fuze.
Duke added: “The stronger-than-expected market growth has also been an opportunity for other vendors, with Microsoft being the most notable example of a company gaining market share.”
