Tough year ahead for VoIP, IMS as market awaits VoLTE

BANGALORE, INDIA: The total global carrier voice over IP (VoIP) and IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) equipment market fell 11 per cent in 1Q13 from 4Q12, to $712 million, due to a drop in sales of legacy equipment and voice application servers, finds market research firm Infonetics Research.

"Service provider session border controllers (SBCs) had a stellar first quarter, passing the $100-million mark to hit an all-time high for a single quarter. Operators are working on complex network migration and voice-over-LTE deployment plans, with sales cycles happening at different times for different elements, and SBCs benefitted from this trend in the first quarter," explains Diane Myers, principal analyst, VoIP, UC, and IMS, Infonetics Research.

For the first time, sales of IMS equipment exceeded those of next-generation voice equipment. The top three VoIP and IMS market share leaders in 1Q13 are Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent, and Genband - all holding steady from the previous quarter, it adds.

"That said, the overall global next-gen voice equipment market is down in 1Q13, coming off a solid 2012, and we expect a patchy year ahead while we wait for VoLTE networks in North America to kick in. Network transformation and VoLTE projects are ongoing of course, but this year's equipment orders are not likely to match the magnitude of last year's," Myers adds.

Alcatel-Lucent had a particularly strong quarter; other vendors posting solid revenue growth in 1Q13 include Acme Packet, AudioCodes, Ericsson, Metaswitch and ZTE. North America is the only region to post quarter-over-quarter growth in the market, up 26 per cent in 1Q13, benefitting from LTE-related activity and network transformation projects. Meanwhile, Asia Pacific declined nearly 1/3 in the same timeframe.