With video becoming a part of the mainstream enterprise communications sector, telepresence’s highly immersive experience will attract several enterprises in the Asia Pacific. The immersive experience, combined with savings on travel and higher productivity will give a huge thrust to the telepresence market among companies with global presence.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Asia Pacific Telepresence Markets CY2010, finds that the market earned revenues of $41.9 million in 2011 and estimates this to reach over $93.5 million in 2017.

As high definition (HD) video does not provide an immersive environment, end users are likely to flock to telepresence companies that offer managed services. Service providers are also focusing on providing telepresence solutions that are interoperable with different devices and can be customised to single and multi-codecs.

"The interoperability with room-based video conferencing systems, executive videoconferencing (VC) solutions, and desktop video solutions will trigger demand among Asian enterprises," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Jessie Yu. "Various telepresence solutions, from one screen to three screen systems, can meet the diversified demand from customers, within the available budget and bandwidth."

With most traditional video conferencing solution vendors, both global and local, stepping into this market, the competition is expected to heat up and lead to price wars on the one hand and technology innovation on the other. The product’s high upfront capital investment and operational costs, IT manpower requirement, and bandwidth consumption will further deter end users from adopting this solution.

Although domestic demand is particularly strong in China and India, the pace of market growth could slow down due to these price drops and the saturation of leading markets such as Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong.

To survive the economic turbulence, the market majors need to have a more dynamic and innovative product portfolio that promises cost-savings and an immersive experience.

"Channel partnerships to reinforce system integration capability and customisation specialty in emerging countries will be vital for success," noted Yu. "Market participants need to streamline the channel partner program with local system integrators and service providers, while maintaining the momentum of technology innovation for interoperability."