Infonetics Research has released two new quarterly reports showing that the VoIP carrier and IMS equipment markets are poised for steady growth through 2013.

Specifically, the firm is predicting that the VoIP carrier equipment market will reach about $3 billion in annual revenues by 2013 – while the IMS equipment market will reach about $1.6 billion.

In a release, Diane Myers, directing analyst for service provider VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research (News - Alert), said although the firm is expecting about a 30 percent drop in worldwide revenue for the carrier VoIP equipment market for 2009, compared to 2008, “the service provider next gen voice equipment market continues to hold steady, with worldwide revenue in the third quarter roughly matching that of the second quarter. This stability is a very good sign for the industry, which has seen a tumultuous year.”

The firm’s quarterly Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast report shows that worldwide service provider VoIP equipment revenue totaled $595 million in 3Q09, a slight decline from the previous quarter.

The report finds that the global economic downturn is accelerating service provider migration to native IP, leaving behind TDM-related equipment and taking a toll on traditional trunk media gateways and softswitches.

In addition it finds that worldwide session border controller (SBC) revenue inched up half a percent from 2Q09 to 3Q09, to $38.7 million.

Other key findings in the report include:

--Class 4 softswitches rebounded with a 58 percent sequential increase in 3Q09, but it wasn't enough to offset a 27 percent Class 5 softswitch decline
--For the second quarter in a row, trunk media gateways offered a bright spot in the market: worldwide revenue up 14 percent sequentially in 3Q09
--Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent posted strong double-digit percent increases in their media gateway revenue in 3Q09
--Nokia (News - Alert) Siemens Networks posted 100 percent growth in softswitch sales in 3Q09

Meanwhile the quarterly IMS Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast report shows that worldwide revenue for the core IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) equipment market, including HSS, CSCF, BGCF, and MRF equipment, declined 39 percent sequentially in 3Q09.

"On the heels of an incredibly strong second quarter, IMS equipment sales were down in the third quarter, but the decline was a result of the market returning to normal levels after the unexpected spike,” Myers said. “Despite the drop, it was a very solid quarter for IMS equipment, which is tracking right in line with subscriber growth and new deployments. We expect the worldwide IMS equipment market to more than double in 2009, and to grow to $1.6 billion by 2013.”

The report finds that IMS equipment is experiencing strong and healthy growth, with near-term growth a reflection of continued adoption of VoIP services worldwide and service providers' migration of VoIP services to IMS networks.

Other key findings include:

--Key operators in Asia Pacific, such as NTT DoCoMo, Softbank (News - Alert), SK Telecom, and KT, continue to push on enhanced mobile services over their IMS networks, including mobile IM, video sharing, and PoC (push to talk over cellular)
--While Ericsson has long led the IMS market in overall number of network deployments, it is coming under serious competition from Huawei, Nokia Siemens (News - Alert) Networks, and Alcatel-Lucent
--In 3Q09, Huawei inched out Ericsson in worldwide CSCF revenue

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