Alec Saunders writes that last Friday, Telephia released a report on what they call the ‘pure-play subscription VoIP’ business in the United States. The study excludes companies like Skype and the cable companies, but includes AT&T; CallVantage and Verizon VoiceWing.
In any case, the survey finds that in Q2 2006, 4.1% of online households in the US subscribe to a VoIP telephone service, up from 3.1% in Q1. This represents an increase from 2.2M to 2.9M.
Vonage is the category killer at 53.9% share, with almost 10 times the share of the second place providers, AT&T; and Verizon each with 5.5%.
The study also looked at reasons to churn. According to Kanishka Agarwal, Vice President of New Products, Telephia:
The VoIP market is highly competitive with many different players trying to get a bigger slice of the market share. Service providers who offer the best customer experience through superior product quality and excellent customer service will beat out their competition
I’m not sure I understand the Telephia decision that “excludes cable companies who offer ‘digital phone’ services since they are not promoted as VoIP.” This will ultimately limit the value of the survey unless Telephia modifies its policy.
I’m not sure that customers worry about such arbitrary distinctions and categories that the industry assigns to different services and technologies.
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AT&T;, Telephia, VoIP, Skype, Alec Saunders, Vonage, Verizon, Mark Goldberg