The emergent market for hosted IP contact centres is showing considerable promise, according to consulting company Frost & Sullivan.

Revenues in the EMEA region hit €139.6 million in 2004 and analyst Shomik Banerjee predicts that this will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26% to reach around €444.9 million by 2009.

"Although the market is still in a formative stage and the technology is novel, the potential therein is huge: as much as 7.9% of the installed base is likely to use hosted IP contact centre services in EMEA by 2009," says Banerjee, adding that the service is likely to complement premise-based contact centres rather than replace them.

A hosted IP contact centre allows enterprises to shift the burden of technology risk to service providers, as well as reduce maintenance and upgrade costs. Frost predicts multi-tenant hosting will be the most popular type of service, though larger enterprises tend to prefer dedicated or single-hosted services. France and the UK are among the earliest adopters of hosted contact centres