Market research firm Infonetics Research released its first quarter 2011 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 where 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.

IMS MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• 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

• 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
• The overall carrier VoIP equipment market is also down year-over-year, down 14% from the first quarter of 2010
• 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%
• 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