Market Overview

The domestic speech recognition market is valued at 11,400 million yen for FY2020 and 13,100 million yen for FY2021 (up 14.9% from the previous fiscal year, based on the sales of businesses). 
Viewing by category, business is strong in call center/contact center solutions, which occupies the highest sales ratio in the market. Companies are increasing investments to their call centers since the pandemic unleashed the value of call center as a non-contact customer touchpoint. Deployment of new solutions using speech recognition technology has been accelerated against the background of demands stemming from the remote work of call center agents, the enhancement of correspondence by digital technology, and the need for mitigating labor shortages. 

Noteworthy Topics

In the Spotlight: Call Recording and Speech Analytics for Inside Sales as New Usage

In accordance with the growing attention for call recording and speech analytics for inside sales/telephone sales as the application of speech recognition technology, providers started to roll out new solutions. The technology not only eliminates process of entering data into SFA (Sales Force Automation) or CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems by automatic transcription, but also reinforces sales and supports sales skill training by analyzing contents and patterns in spoken language of salesperson/sales organization. 
Because the increase of telework due to the COVID-19 situation diminished opportunities for managers to coach their staff on the spot of sales calls, and because growing popularity of video conferencing systems made voice recording easier, the speech recognition technology is in the spotlight.

Future Outlook

The speech recognition market is expected to remain strong from FY2022 onwards. It is projected to grow at a CAGR of 16.4% during FY2020-FY2025, reaching 24,400 million yen by FY2025. 
The market growth is driven by the general trend of businesses going online, which has been increasing the usage of speech data, and by global advancement of AI technology, which is improving accuracy of speech recognition as well as expanding its usage.
While low birth rate, aging population, and shortage of workers are serious issues in Japan, the demand is growing for automatic speech-to-text solution to drive efficiencies and accelerates workstyle reform. Use of speech recognition technology is expected to expand as an assisting technology to drive digital transformation (DX). 

Research Outline