Voice, Broadband Poised For 'Bumper Year': Study

IBIS World Says Sectors Among Top 10 Growth Areas for 2008

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/20/2008 9:38:00 AM

Even as the U.S. economy appears to be in a recession, two cable industry services – voice over Internet Protocol and broadband – will see double-digit growth in 2008, according to a study by research firm IBISWorld.

VoIP service topped IBISWorld’s list of the top 10 growth sectors for the year, with the firm predicting a 24.3% annual increase in revenues, to reach $3.19 billion.

IBISWorld – which tracks more than 700 industry categories – expects the number of VoIP subscribers to rise by 21.2% this year, to 16.6 million. Voice over IP “will easily outperform the wider telecommunications sector this year,” senior analyst George Van Horn said in announcing the study’s results.

The firm also expects broadband to be a top growth area, with high-speed Internet connections forecast to rise by 15.1% and Web search portal revenues rising 13.4%.

“Internet penetration still has some way to go to reach full saturation in American households,” according to Van Horn. IBISWorld projects the number of broadband subscribers rising to 118.7 million by 2012.

The rest of the firm’s top 10 industry fast-growing sectors are: corn farming; foam product manufacturing; biotechnology; remediation services; mining and oil-and-gas machinery manufacturing; environmental consulting; collection agencies; and oil and gas extraction.

IBISWorld said the five poorest-performing industries will be: military armored vehicle and tank manufacturing; chicken egg production; emergency and other relief services; truck, trailer and motor home manufacturing; and other metal-ore mining.