If a new report from Visiongain is anything to go by, the Mobile VoIP market will hit annual revenues of $36 billion by 2016.

Visiongain’s (News - Alert) report attributes the growth to increasing demand from customers, of which it believes there will be over 180 million in the world by then.

Naturally smartphone growth is expected to be the major driving forces behind the rise of mobile VoIP, as the report found, “consumers are increasingly demanding cost effective communication services, so mobile VoIP is likely to see an explosion of growth in the next decade or so... There has been a steady increase in the number of successful partnerships between VoIP vendors and mobile operators to deploy mobile VoIP services.”

Visiongain is well-known as a provider of intelligence reports, including a recent one “The Border Security Market 2011-2021: UAVs, UGVs & Perimeter Surveillance Systems,” finding that the border security market will reach a value of $17 billion in 2011, as governments around the world continue to invest in a range of border security products designed to offer protection against a wide range of homeland security threats from combating terrorism, to controlling the movement of goods and personnel across international boundaries.

Last week TMC’s (News - Alert) Carolyn J. Dawson wrote that mobile VoIP specialists will now be expected to opt for tie-ups with social media, gaming as well as software partners. This will have to be done in the form of mobile network operator partnerships over the next few years.

The main reason behind this, Juniper Research (News - Alert) concludes, is that social media are now moving into the mainstream all the more, according to Dawson.

Juniper Research is anticipating that the voice based applications will soon become an extension of the broader communications market and become more widely available. Vivox are among the many companies that are now working on pioneering aspects of this service especially in the gaming field. Also Skype's takeover by Microsoft as well as many Facebook (News - Alert) tie-ups with VoIP providers will work at enhancing this trend.

All of this is mentioned in the report 'Mobile Voice & Video Calling: Strategic Opportunities & Business Models 2011-2016'.