The last quarter of 2011 was very good for VoIP (voice over IP) and IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) equipment manufacturers, according to a report issued yesterday by Infonetics Research. Infonetics’ (News - Alert) fourth quarter 2011 (4Q11) Service Provider VoIP and IMS Equipment and Subscribers vendor market share and forecast report showed that worldwide VoIP and IMS equipment sales grew by 15.8 percent over third quarter results, rising to $690 million. Despite the good 4Q numbers, 2011 still saw annual sales of VoIP and IMS equipment fall by 2.1 percent, down to $2.6 billion compared to 2010, marking the fourth annual decline for the industry.
Still, Infonetics sees sunnier days ahead for VoIP and IMS makers, predicting that annual sales will jump to $3.8 billion by 2016, driven by accelerating IMS equipment installation by major worldwide telecom service providers, including AT&T (News 
- Alert), China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom and NTT. Cable and wireless service providers like Comcast and Verizon Wireless will also spur sales as they implement IMS across their networks.
"The carrier VoIP and IMS equipment market surged in the final quarter of 2011, as it often does at the end of the year, but the more important measure is the year-over-year comparison, and from that vantage point the market is down two percent in 2011 from 2010 as legacy trunk media gateway and softswitch sales drag on the overall market," Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research (News - Alert), said in a press release. "However, we'll see this trend shift starting this year as the high-growth market segments -- including IMS core equipment and session border controllers - become collectively large enough to offset the ongoing declines of the legacy products."
Infonetics noted that some vendors, including Huawei (News - Alert), GENBAND, Alcatel-Lucent, and Acme Packet saw growth in the VoIP and IMS market in 2011, and that Huawei edged out GENBAND as the sales leader for the VoIP and IMS market in 2011.
While North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) both experienced more than 20 percent 4Q VoIP and IMS sales growth, 2011 was a breakout year for Latin America which saw an overall 34 percent jump in VoIP and IMS equipment sales, driven by VoIP expansion, especially in Brazil and Mexico.
Worldwide, Infonetics sees IMS-based subscribers increasing from 177 million in 2011 to 610 million by 2016.
Chris Freeburn is a Web Editor for TMCnet.Edited by
Rich Steeves
