According to Infonetics Research, the service provider voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) equipment revenue grew by 37 percent to reach $992 million in the first quarter of 2014. However, on a sequential basis the VoIP and IMS equipment revenues declined by nine per cent during the quarter under review.
Further, Alcatel-Lucent led the VoIP and IMS revenue market market in the first quarter of 2014, ahead of Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia and Genband. The research firm states that Alcatel-Lucent witnessed encouraging growth in core IMS and voice application server revenue, particularly in North America.
Infonetics Research underlines that the growth in the core IMS and voice application server segment continues to be driven by the introduction of voice over long term evolution-based networks in the North American and Asian markets.
Globally, operators including AT&T and PCCW/HKT are already offering VoLTE services to subscribers. Going forward, NTT DOCOMO too plans to introduce VoLTE services for its users in June 2014. Over the next few years, worldwide, spending on Class 5 replacement and voice over broadband and session initiation protocol trunking expansion will continue, says Infonetics Research.
Despite, strong growth in VoIP and IMS equipment market in regions such as North America and Asia, Infonetics Research expects overall growth in the service provider VoIP and IMS equipment market in 2014 to slow down as operators commercially launch services and draw down capacity built over the past years.
