Mubasher: Users of the voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology worldwide will grow by 2 billion to reach 5 billion by 2024, as technological advancements will together enable IP-based voice services, digital market analytics firm Juniper Research said in a new research.

Smart speakers, like Amazon Echo and Google Nest, were seen an opportunity that operators could seize, through offering new engagement channels to brands and enterprises, Juniper said.

It is expected that more than 220 million smart speakers will be used to make calls to landlines or mobile phone numbers in five years.

Moreover, the number of smart speaker voice minutes to phone numbers is expected to rise by more than 1,000% to 230 billion minutes of voice use.

Among the major factors that is suggested by Juniper’s report to help distribute voice services was communications-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS).

New voice technologies, including interactive voice response and voice bots, will be essential to CPaaS platforms, opening more communications channels.

By 2024, operators’ revenue from voice services will drop to $210 billion, from $380 billion in 2019, with the growing usage of over-the-top (OTT) applications, such as WhatsApp and Viber.

In order to reduce such losses, Juniper urged operators to push for partnerships with CPaaS vendors to allow access to their mobile subscribers for voice and messaging services.