TTS Poised for $3 Billion Growth in Five Years
Research firm MarketsandMarkets valued the text-to-speech market at $2 billion in 2020 and expects it to reach $5 billion by 2026, growing at a compounded annual rate of 14.6 percent.
The rising demand for handheld devices, increased government spending on education, the dependence of the growing elderly population on technology, and the rising number of people with learning disabilities are driving the growth, the research found.
As for mobile devices, the report notes that they have transformed from voice-calling devices to more advanced personal computing devices that allow users to browse the internet, capture photographs, translate languages, and manage entertainment and multimedia content. The growing need for automation and convenience is increasing the adoption of text-to-speech technology in everyday applications.
Text-to-speech software allows people with visual impairment or reading disabilities to listen to written words on a computer or mobile device. When the text-to-speech system is integrated with a screen reader, it helps visually challenged users interpret and perform computer operations with an audio interface.
The report also found that one of the major limitations of speech synthesis is that it lacks the complexity of natural speech, such as the stress on a particular word and tone up/down. A large set of rules and their exceptions are needed to create correct pronunciation for synthesized speech. Some languages have special features in terms of prosody and pronunciation, making speech synthesis more complex. The complexity in clear pronunciation, along with voice modification, is expected to limit the use of text-to-speech technology in various applications.
The report notes that the text-to-speech market was dominated by Nuance Communications, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and Amazon. Other players mentioned in the report include Sensory, Readspeaker, LumenVox, Acapela Group, CereProc, SESTEK, iFlytek, TextSpeak, Nextup Technologies, iSpeech, Nexmo, Baidu,, Facebook, Govivace, and GL Communications.