Communication Platform as a service (CPaaS) Market

Market Overview

The global communication platform as a service market size was worth USD 5.9 billion in 2021. It is estimated to reach an expected market value of USD 85.6 billion at a CAGR of 34.4% during the forecast period (2022-2030).

At present, due to several reasons, many industries have shifted their work culture from regular working to remote working. Additionally, these industries are rapidly adopting digital transformation while strategizing their operation. Hence, these industries heavily rely on CPaaS by integrating it into their prevailing process flow. The increasing requirement for effortlessly maintained network systems that have the potential to facilitate effective communications throughout multiple end-user industries, including healthcare, retail, and manufacturing, among others, is apparent, bearing in mind the old/outmoded contact centers.

Furthermore, the introduction of cost-effective cloud-based solutions countersigned better adoption from healthcare providers, who frequently have minimum IT budgets. With the subscription-based United Communication services in place, the healthcare contact centers are instituting their PBX systems and flawlessly addressing numerous customer requirements from several sites.

The speedily snowballing espousal of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) development and other mobility solutions is projected to increase the acceptance of CPaaS solutions. BYOD appeared as an important trend in this novel era of flexibility and network accessibility for workforces working globally for numerous organizations, transforming the workplace into more productive. Moreover, CPaaS helps several organizations to save additional costs. For Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs), these cost savings can add up fast and can potentially facilitate these SMBs to safeguard their bottom line better while enhancing employee productivity.

Market Dynamics

Global Communication Platform as a Service Market Driver

• Rising Movement of Companies from Adjacent and Conventional Models

Conventionally, businesses depend on real-time communication technologies similar to CPaaS. The primary concern in the growth of such a communication application is the time, energy, and workforce employed to develop and implement those applications on prevailing systems. The CPaaS merchants provide comprehensive support and documentation for creating and organizing these applications. Many merchants offer separate libraries for application development for mobile and desktop individually.

As legacy communication systems reach the end of life, enterprise groups and companies are always searching for flexible ways to take their tech stack to the next level. CPaaS, on the other hand, propose an appropriate and cost-effective way for businesses to upgrade their tech and adopt the advantages of the cloud. However, CPaaS also delivers an entrance into numerous varieties of digital transformation.

Furthermore, some key CPaaS players have moved beyond offering voice and messaging capabilities to include video calls and have their communications capabilities complemented with Machine Learning, Sentiment Analysis, and VR/AR. The increasing use of these differentiated features is driving the growth of the CPaaS.

• Increasing Demand for Omni channel Marketing

The increasing demand for Omni channel marketing among businesses to preserve and fascinate new customers lifts the need for the CPaaS market. Customers throughout a lot of industries necessitate reaching firms through a range of various procedures. Certain want to practice text messaging, and at the same time, others prefer live web chat and other standard voice services. Using CPaaS permits access to all popular communications platforms at once. This places businesses face-forward on the customers these platforms want to utilize.

Further, certain companies cooperate with their customers through numerous channels. This can be over methods on their live chat, social media, and website, among others. On the other hand, although customers might be positive and accept diverse service levels from various channels, they also assume that communication remains constant.

Further, according to a Customer Experience Impact (CEI) survey conducted by Oracle, 86% of consumers were willing to pay more for a better customer experience. The same survey also indicated that about 89% of customers switched to a competitor following a poor customer experience. Hence, enterprises in various end-user industries of the market are demanding multi-purpose, user-friendly, accurate, and fast solutions, thus, driving the growth of CPaaS.

Global Communication Platform as a Service Market Restraint

• Increasing Personal Data Regulation throughout End-user Verticals like Healthcare

The regulatory and security concerns that are related to user data are one of the factors that are contributing to the slow growth of the CPaaS market. With the increasing deployment of these communication solutions, multiple sectors face a significant challenge with the growing strict government regulations related to data usage and privacy-related issues.

Cloud-based solutions are the most viable option for various applications since they provide storage and computation for cloud users at a relatively low cost. Although the deployment of cloud-based solutions has increased rapidly over the past few years, the area still lacks appropriate security measures that can protect the data and applications for cloud users with accessibility changing hands.

According to Calyptix Security, the threats faced by the companies after cloud adoption include unauthorized access to customers and proprietary information. This lack of security and privacy issues in the cloud- and server-based services is hampering the market's growth.

The retail and e-commerce industry is tremendously contributing to CPaaS solutions' growth. With retailers and e-tailers operating globally, compliance management has become even more challenging. For instance, regulations like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are challenging market growth.

Global Communication Platform as a Service Market Opportunities

• Technological Revolutions like Context-based Transactions and Lightweight Deployment 

Most CPasS platforms primarily added the legacy public switched telephone networks (PSTN) communications such as SMS text messaging and phone calls to applications through APIs. The CPaaS 2.0 has taken advantage of the technological leaps made in the last decade to build an IP-based seamless communication experience across video, voice, chat, file sharing, and more.

Technological advancements have boosted the benefits of CPaaS. AI, an innovation primed to revolutionize service- and communication-related technology, is a significant example. As machines grow smarter and closer to communicative parity with humans, cloud-based communications platforms are expected to take the idea of automated self-service, among other business functions, to new levels. AI in the call center is one such example of this.

Technological innovations carry a value that works in multiple sectors. Smart shopping assistants will soon be better at making purchase suggestions based on the user’s browsing history. The software will provide accurate, real-time translations, reducing the need for expensive multilingual customer support representatives. APIs would provide CPaaS video chat technology and AI capable of facial recognition to turn any phone or webcam into a biometric security checkpoint. Chatbots will also continue to grow in scope and capacity, allowing multiple businesses to deploy teams of automated service reps made entirely of bots. Such technological revolutions provide lucrative opportunities for market growth.

Regional Analysis

Region-wise, the global communication platform as a service market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA, where North America holds supremacy in the global communication platform as a service market by grasping the largest market share.

North America holds the most significant market share and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.1% during the forecast period. North America dominates the CPaaS market because of the current upsurge in mobility and the gigantic progress in saturation of smart mobile devices due to IT's consumerization. Furthermore, with the growing demand for cost-effective and user-friendly browser-based communication solutions, chief market players are scheduling to acquaint themselves with incorporated and cohesive CPaaS solutions in this region, leading to market growth. The United States is one of the leading innovators and investors in the 5G market, owing to a high investment rate for 5G deployment. The growth in the adoption of CPaaS might also lead to fraudulent and illegal activities, which has led to the adoption of secure methods to increase the demand for CPaaS in the region and maintain compliance with regional regulations. In September 2020, Numeracle, Inc., a provider of Verified Identity for communications, and Fonative, the Compliant Communications Company, collaborated to support the recent enforcement efforts taken by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the State of Ohio against service providers who knowingly, or unknowingly, support the origination of illegal call traffic across communications platforms. By delivering the Verified Identity solution to its customer base, Fonative built on its long-standing focus on regulatory compliance and risk management for call centers by proactively integrating Numeracle’s robust customer due diligence into its RegReadyTM CPaaS platform. This phenomenon leads to market growth furthermore.

Europe holds the second largest market share and is anticipated to reach USD 26.3 billion by 2030 at a remarkable CAGR of 35.1%. The European region is expected to exhibit a significant adoption rate of CPaaS as many European countries are investing heavily in their digital and private infrastructures. Public initiatives have been launched to fill the skills gap and accelerate the cloud adoption rate. For instance, the governments of Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania have committed to enhancing their digital infrastructures, while the government of Ukraine is well ahead of its target and doubled the spending on ICT research and development in 2021. The regional government is focusing on helping these businesses by pushing telecom providers, like Vodafone or EE, to ramp up their 5G infrastructure deployment efforts. For instance, Vodafone is making 5G moves in Germany, connecting more than 20 towns and cities with its next-generation service. The company’s first 5G base stations were activated in 2019. The substantial growth in smartphone penetration and mobile phone connections is expected to boost its telecom industry further, thereby creating significant opportunities for CPaaS in the region.

Asia-Pacific is the third largest region due to the positively emerging telecom sector and large customer base. Furthermore, the region is gradually investing in 5G services. Countries like China, India, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea, are progressively capitalizing on developing the domestic 5G market leading to market growth in the region. The Chinese government's growing effort, telecom operators, and vendors to deploy 5G as quickly as possible are expected to bring more growth opportunities into the studied market. The country has some of the largest telecom 5G infrastructure providers, like Huawei.

Additionally, the region is expected to grow due to small and medium organizations' investments. SMEs are investing in expanding the adoption of cloud-based and technologically advanced solutions for the telecom sector. Countries such as China and India provide significant growth opportunities in the region. Additionally, the Digital India initiative aims to move legacy and on-premise systems to a cloud-based or integrated model. It aimed to establish a cloud platform that is expected to host the delivery of e-services to citizens, which will further boost the growth of the telecom sector in the country.

Segmental Analysis

The global communication platform as a service market is segmented by end-user and region.

Based on End-User, the global CPaaS market is further segmented into IT and Telecom, BFSI, Retail and E-commerce, Healthcare, and Others. The retail and e-commerce segment holds the most significant market share among these segments.

The retail and e-commerce segment accounted for the largest market share and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 35.2% during the forecast period. CPaaS can be combined with customer relationship management software, marketing automation solutions, and other customer databases. Then the device influences the customer search results spread over algorithms, and shape communications and commendations that are further presented by human representatives or chatbots. Additionally, by incorporating CPaaS with e-commerce tools, retailers permit chatbots to do commands like answering questions, taking orders, suggesting more items, and even completing purchases. Using CPaaS, customized updates can be sent to the customer's right channel. Hence, if the e-commerce site forecasts shipping postponements because of the poor climate in certain parts, it can proactively notify pretentious customers. Therefore, with CPaaS, practical support becomes automated and smooth, driving market growth.

The IT and telecommunication segment is the second largest. The engagement with conventional telephony like voice and SMS services has diminished considerably. The primary reason behind this is the discovery of new opportunities for real-time communication, like OTT platforms. The concentrated demand is forcing organizations over the edge to partner with CPaaS players and deliver solutions on their own networks, influencing their prevailing infrastructures and data centers and inaugurating new revenue streams. This considerably grasps an outlook of market growth. These CPaaS or programmable telecom suppliers integrate everything from voice to SMS, video, and location/mobile through APIs and resolve customer problems quicker. Such applications drive segment growth.

The BFSI segment is the third largest Data breaches lead to an exponential increase in costs and loss of valuable customer information. According to the 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) released by Verizon, 90% of all cyber occurrences in the financial services and insurance sector were done with monetary inspiration. Cyber attackers are in chase of the stress-free way probable to engineer a monetary gain attack pointing numerous financial services organizations. Nevertheless, CPaaS and APIs provide benefits, including better efficiency and third-party app incorporations leading to market growth.

Recent Developments

• March 2022- Vonage Holdings Corp Enhanced Video Capabilities for its UCaaS and CCaaS Solutions with its Video API
• February 2022- Sinch AB implemented a new operating model with the acquisition of Inteliquent, MessageMedia, and Pathwire.
• June 2022- 8x8 Launched New Channel Program for Microsoft Gold Partners with Exclusive Purpose-built Edition for Organizations Adopting Microsoft Teams.
• June 2022- Bandwidth Inc and Alianza Announced Partnership to Accelerate Cloud Migration for Communications Service Providers.
• April 2022- Mitel Network Corporations announced an expanded range of Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology (DECT) handsets built with plastics protected with BioCote® antimicrobial technology.