Tencent unit banks on cloud video conferencing for bigger market share

Tencent Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Chinese internet titan Tencent Holdings Ltd, has unveiled its cloud video conferencing product as it sees big growth potential in the blossoming smart office market.

The new product relies on the cloud and is dubbed Tencent Meeting. It offers a way to maintain strong communication with coworkers, clients, partners or anyone who uses the system, which will help enterprises save costs and improve efficiency.

Wu Zurong, vice-president of Tencent Cloud, said Tencent aims to be a co-builder of the video conferencing ecology.

"Entering the video conferencing sector, we will not offer any hardware products. Instead, we will focus on providing the platform and standard software as a services, dedicated to connecting people, devices, conference rooms and maintaining strong communications," Wu said during the launch event on Wednesday in Beijing.

"Tencent hopes to work with both software and hardware partners to expand the smart office market, helping Chinese companies reduce costs, increase efficiency and accelerate the digital transformation," Wu added.

Given the blossoming mobile internet, cloud computing and other new technologies as well as the rise of millennials in the workforce, the smart offices sector is booming globally, along with the rise of video conferencing businesses.

A recent report released by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan said 32.8 million video conferencing related devices, infrastructure and cloud services seat licenses were shipped, generating a total revenue of $7.8 billion in 2018. The market is on a high growth trajectory and is estimated to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1 percent to hit $13.82 billion by 2023.

"User demand for video communications has been booming," said Roopam Jain, an industry director within Frost & Sullivan's information and communications technologies business unit. "The proliferation of mobile devices combined with an unending appetite to consume video in all its forms has been a major factor in breaking traditional barriers to adoption."

Jain added the consumerization of video has also led to a growing need for hassle-free video conferencing that empowers users to connect from any device with a simple click of a button.

Seeing the growing demand for an easy-to-use option, Tencent's new product can be deployed on mobile phones and personal computers. Users also can access the service via Tencent's WeChat mini programs and the Enterprise WeChat that targets corporate clients. Users can sync the notes across multiple devices.

To cater especially to the growing young generation and provide a service that can be used anywhere, Tencent Meeting offers functions that include blurring the background and putting in beauty effects.

With more than 20 years of experience of audio and video technologies and over one million servers, Tencent is getting serious about carving out a stake in the burgeoning video conferencing market.

So far, Tencent has gained 1.1 billion WeChat users, 800 million QQ service users and 2.5 million corporate clients on its Enterprise WeChat platform.