Munich-based cloud PBX provider NFON announced last month sizable growth numbers during 2020, significantly outpacing market expectations.
In the face of global downturns during the COVID-19 pandemic, NFON’s cloud telephony services for business communications reportedly succeeded in achieving considerable growth in both terms of new seats added as well as higher revenues per customer.
According to the company, NFON grew recurring revenues by 23.6% to reach a total of EUR 59.4 million, beating out 2019’s EUR 48.1 million. These numbers helped the firm to achieve a total of EUR 67.6 million for 2020. Another significant milestone for the company included having surpassed 500,000 seats at a rate of 16.7% over the year before, helping to solidify their gains in their markets.
Looking back at the past year, there are a number of clear indicators that drove NFON’s growth in the European voice-centric business communications space.
Factors Leading to Growth
The move towards the cloud was already moving full steam ahead before the Coronavirus forced businesses throughout the world to shut their doors and shift over to remote work.
The ability to scale up compute and storage services with products from AWS, Microsoft, and Google through the cloud has led many organizations to start their adoption of cloud services. They have recognized that by moving away from the on-premises models that require larger capital expenditures and maintenance by internal resources, they can work more efficiently and reach better cost efficiency results.
Similarly, organizations of all sizes –– from smaller operations to SMEs and the enterprises –– have understood that the cloud-PBX model makes more sense for their business. Advantages include the flexibility for adding new seats as needed and receiving support without additional investments in personnel or expertise.
In light of these benefits, the market has moved towards streamlining technology stacks that is pushing organizations to adopt newer, more advanced cloud communications models.
“After the phase-out of ISDN and the ongoing replacement of outdated phone system technology with cloud PBX, we are immediately in the third wave of disruption,” says NFON’s CTO Jan-Peter Kooperman.
“Telephony, collaboration with video or chat and business applications such as contact center solutions are converging,” he explains. “Customers want to use a platform in which they can switch between voice, video, text and collaboration fluently, easily guided and without complications. It clearly follows that we will offer a complete UCaaS suite with exactly these components, complemented by open APIs and further omni-channel solutions."
