WebRTC Market to Gain Steadily for Next Decade

The time of Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) being just an overly-hyped technology has pretty much come and gone, according to reports, and the way is increasingly clear for some substantial market gains. With a large number of players already in the field, the Transparency report suggests the entire WebRTC market could be worth $152 billion just by 2025.

Thanks to that substantial array of competitors—from Twilio to Avaya, GENBAND to Mitel and beyond—the market for WebRTC worldwide is going to be highly fragmented, and thus highly fluid, for much of the foreseeable future. With all those fragments in the field, businesses will be able to go after new competitors on a fairly routine basis.

In fact, the Transparency report cites this same fragmented nature as motivation behind a growing number of acquisitions, as the primary players in this market look to grab more market share by picking up smaller participants in the field and adding these to current operations. This means the WebRTC market worldwide—which accounted for $10.71 billion in 2016—is likely to increase substantially, hitting $81.52 billion, as projected. That's a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.3 percent, which is major growth by most any standard.

It' s not just the variety of firms involved that will continue to spark demand, reports note; it's the increasing demand as well.  North America alone accounts for over 40 percent of the overall market share, a figure it will actually hold throughout much of the forecast period thanks to sheer demand for WebRTC technology. Throw in continuing improvements in technology—particularly the upcoming release of 5G connectivity—and WebRTC's demand likely won't be slowing down any time soon.

Basically, not only is there increasing demand, but the supply can increase about as rapidly as the demand is, resulting in gains all across the industry. With new connectivity about to emerge in the next few years, and the 4G operation getting ramped up as well, there's likely plenty of room for WebRTC to gain as well. WebRTC wasn't always a go-to technology; it's really only started coming out in recent years, so it's not surprising that it's taken some time to find its collective footing.

Yet now, with connectivity improving and use cases on the rise, it's safe to say that WebRTC will be popular for some time to come. The numbers may not pan out just as Transparency projects, but even partial success on this front will prove worthwhile.