Work-from-home policies, social distancing and government lockdowns have increased the demand for video conferencing apps, for both business and personal use. According to a new report from App Annie, business conferencing apps have been experiencing record growth as a result, and just hit their biggest week ever in March, when they topped 62 million downloads during the week of March 14-21. Meanwhile, social networking video app Houseparty has also seen phenomenal growth in Europe during lockdowns and home quarantines. The jump in business app downloads to 62 million across iOS and Google  Play earlier in March was up 45% from just the prior week. It was also the highest growth among any category across the app stores that week, the report said. And it was up 90% from the weekly average of business app downloads in 2019. Much of the growth in the category is due to the increased adoption of apps like Google’s  Hangouts Meet, Microsoft  Teams and Zoom Cloud Meetings. Zoom topped the charts worldwide in February and March, and continues to see high numbers of downloads in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere in Europe. Video calling and educational usage of Microsoft Teams productivity software had risen in recent weeks as employees work remotely and schools cancel in-person classes.  

The global video conferencing industry is expected to gain traction during the corona virus outbreak. As the enterprises and government organizations are considering video conferencing as an ultimate solution to connect with remote workers, customers, and employees; and, at the same time, it prevents direct contact with the people. There are several factors that have been driving the market growth since the last decade, such as the increasing focus of companies towards the expansion of their businesses in the global market and in the management of the workforce in various subsidiaries. However, the outbreak of the corona virus has impacted the video conferencing market positively. The ban on travel has limited the reach of the enterprises in the foreign market, which in turn, has increased the adoption of video conferencing software. Companies are adopting an innovative recruitment process at such time by engaging video conferences. The government, on the other hand, is using video conferencing software to connect with doctors and administrative people of their region and also of other countries. Global video conferencing industry report is segmented based on its end-user into government and commercial sector. As the countries are announcing a lockdown of their respective states continuously and urging enterprises to offer work from home facilities to its employees; the adoption rate of video conferencing software is getting increased. The government of a number of countries has put a restriction of trade and travel, owing to which the MNCs are adopting video conferencing software to engage their clients. […]