May 5th, 2005
Malik: most VoIP companies doing "bupkis" in sales
Om Malik, he of the Broadband Blog that bears his name, has an interesting post today that disassembles some VoIP market projections made by Infonetics Research.
The report, which was issued today, claims that North American VoIP service provider revenues will grow from $1.3 billion in 2004 to $19.9 billion in 2009.
Malik has some issues with what these numbers entail, especially in the here and now. He points out that:
Managed IP PBX services accounted for slightly more than half of the $1.3 billion in VoIP revenues last year.
That fact leaves less than $650 million for the 500 or so residential VoIP services in North America.
When you factor out the sales figures for the very largest VoIP providers, that means that on average, most of the remaining 500 North American services are doing an average $2 million in sales.
"In other words, all the other pretenders in the VoIP races, well, they’re doing bupkis in sales," Malik writes.
Bupkis, FYI, is a Yiddish term that roughly translates into "nothing," or "worthless."
Yes, but I would point out those are 2004 numbers. So maybe Om should have written "have been doing bupkis in sales."
And that was then, a frozen moment in time getting fainter in the rear-view mirror as time goes on.
Given the Infonautics report estimates that the number of SOHO/residential VoIP subscribers in North America will rise from 1.1 million last year to 20.8 million in 2008, these now also-ran VoIP services should experience far greater proportionate sales. Plus, I see services-consolidation as inevitable. This will bump up the average-sales-per-VoIP provider even more.
Who’s right? Om or your humble scribe? Post a TalkBack here.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
