"ScanSoft remains the top vendor for network-based speech recognition solutions," said Audrey William, Industry Manager of Frost and Sullivan Technology Practice (Asia Pacific). "Speech technology has been gaining momentum and acceptance in markets where labour costs are relatively high, such as Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. These markets have a compelling case for the adoption of network-based automatic speech recognition solutions. Businesses that have not taken up speech technology will feel competitive pressures to do so over the next 12 months as challengers start seeing cost savings and competitive advantages by rolling out these projects." According to Frost and Sullivan, the Asia Pacific Speech market, still at its nascent stages of development, is worth US$7.1 million in 2003 Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) license revenues with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34.0 percent throughout the forecast period (2003 - 2010). Financial services and telecommunications carriers are likely to represent the largest growth potential. Government, healthcare and the travel sectors are also likely to gain momentum across the region.
The report predicts that demand for speech recognition solutions is likely to increase rapidly around 2005 and 2006 due to the improving investment climate and a growing recognition of the value proposition of speech technologies.