Half of all IMS equipment sold going to
mobile networks in 1st Q 2011
Market research firm Infonetics Research released its first
quarter 2011 (1Q11) IMS Equipment and Subscribers and Service
Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers preliminary market
share and forecast reports.
"Mobile is the big news in the IMS equipment market,
with over half of all IMS equipment sold going to mobile
networks in the first quarter of 2011. The impact of LTE
is starting to kick in, particularly in North America, where
IMS equipment is being implemented for LTE networks for
subscriber registrations and mobile messaging services,
and in Asia Pacific for enhanced services over 3G. We expect
2011 to be the year when LTE and network transformation
projects start having an important impact on IMS. Meanwhile,
the movement towards IMS and all-IP networks is having a
reverse impact on legacy VoIP equipment such as softswitches
and trunk media gateways," notes Diane Myers, directing
analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.
Market highlight of IMS equipment shared by Infonetics:
The IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) equipment market was
down 11.6% sequentially in 1Q11, but is up 96% over the
first quarter of 2010. Although there is still lumpiness
quarter to quarter in the IMS equipment segment, there is
continued overall upward progression in the market due to
early LTE deployments, network modernization plans, and
upgrades to PacketCable 2.0.
In 1Q11, Asia Pacific represents just over half of all
IMS equipment revenue driven by activity in Japan, South
Korea, China, and pockets of Southeast Asia NEC, which had
a strong quarter in a number of telecom equipment markets
in 1Q11, led the fast-growing session control function (CSCF)
server market, due to its dominance in Asia, where NTT in
Japan is its largest IMS customer
Service provider VOIP market highlights shared by Infonetics:
1.The service provider VoIP equipment market, including
trunk media gateways, SBCs, media servers, softswitches,
and voice application servers, dropped 25% to $460.5 million
in 1Q11 from 4Q10.
2.The overall carrier VoIP equipment market is also down
year-over-year, down 14% from the first quarter of 2010.
3.The bright spots of the market benefiting from the move
to IMS: SBCs (session border controllers), global revenue
for which is up 26% year-over-year, and voice application
servers, up 32%.
4.Increasing numbers of VoIP subscribers (particularly in
Brazil and Mexico), SIP trunking, and IP interconnectivity
between networks will continue to be important drivers in
the carrier VoIP equipment market
Vendor highlights in 1Q11: GENBAND maintained its lead in
the overall carrier VoIP equipment market, followed closely
by Huawei
