In the face of Microsoft’s market share dominance with Teams, UC-as-a-service (UCaaS) providers of all sizes, capabilities, and reach have struggled to gain a foothold in companies converting from a premises-based or other model to a pure cloud implementation. Yet one company—Cisco, with Webex—bested the market share leader in Metrigy’s second-annual ranking of UCaaS providers based on scoring across the fixed set of criteria we use to gage which are best positioned for long-term success.
That is, Cisco knocked Microsoft from the top spot on the strength of its market share (second largest), highest possible scores for financials and product mix, and above-average market share momentum, customer sentiment, and customer business success ratings. As revealed in our newly published ranking of UCaaS providers, the UCaaS MetriRank 2024 report, Cisco earned 64.7 total points to Microsoft’s 60.6.
Cisco’s critical advantage is having an installed base of enterprise communications customers to migrate from its premises-based Unified Communications Manager (UCM) system to UCaaS, as Diane Myers, Metrigy’s senior research director and this report’s author, explained. Over the past five years, as she noted in the report, Cisco has grown the Webex Calling business that it manages (vs. hosted providers) to the second-largest installed base of seats. Note, too, that while Webex Calling is a necessary component for meeting our definition of UCaaS, just as important to Cisco’s success is the meeting and messaging capabilities comprising the overall Webex Suite of which calling is one piece.
For its part, Microsoft adds the strongest financials and above-average marks for market momentum to its largest market share. However, it fell from the top rank as it did not earn top marks for product mix and is behind the lead on customer sentiment and customer business success scores. Nonetheless, Microsoft is well-positioned to be a top performer over the coming years.
Beyond Cisco and Microsoft in the third, fourth, and fifth rankings are Zoom, RingCentral, and Verizon, respectively. The remaining providers in the top 10, alphabetically, are 8×8, Vonage, Gamma, GoTo, and Nextiva. Below the top 10 market share cutoff but worth watching for their strengths in specific verticals or market segments are Comcast, Dialpad, Fusion Connect, Google, Intermedia, Sangoma, Wildex, and Windstream.
Although competition is stiff, there’s plenty of room for growth in UCaaS. In our global Workplace Collaboration MetriCast 2024 market size and forecast study, conducted with 998 companies, Metrigy found that 50% of businesses worldwide are using UCaaS as their sole phone and collaboration platform. Doing so brings them flexibility and scalability, the ability to move to an OpEx model, quicker access to enhanced capabilities, including AI, and more.
Additionally, Metrigy pegs the global market for UCaaS at $20.6 billion in 2023, up 9% year-over-year, and forecasts the market to grow at a 5% CAGR from 2023 to 2028, reaching $26.7 billion by 2028. UCaaS delivers cost-effective services with sophisticated product features for small, midsize, and large companies.
For the full UCaaS MetriRank 2024 report, including all methodology, scoring, a deep dive on each provider, and more, reach out to sales@metrigy.com.
