VoIP and IMS Market Grew $1.3 Billion in Q1 2015

The voice-over-IP (VoIP) and IP media subsystem (IMS) equipment markets are booming.

A recent report from business information and analytics software company IHS found that the markets gained 29 percent in the first quarter of this year. That has them reach $1.3 billion that continues to be driven by telecoms worldwide. The numbers are not only impressive for their scope but also in how they transcend the typically-slow first quarter of each year, said Diane Myers, research director for VoIP, UC, and IMS at IHS.

“VoIP and IMS equipment sales bucked the typically slow first quarter, with year-over-year growth in the first quarter being driven by core IMS solutions and voice application servers,” Myers said.

It is no wonder that the market is experiencing such growth. As TMC has previously noted, the popularity of VoIP lies in its ability to provide a number of features at low costs. Enterprise communications is one of the most important tools in which businesses can invest, and VoIP is becoming a viable choice for small and large firms alike.

Piggybacking on the capabilities of VoIP is the equipment market for which those devices handle communications routing. For telecoms that want to deliver IP-based voice, they need to invest in hardware that will handle such connections. Telecoms across the globe are expanding their systems and causing the underlying market to soar. The IHS report showed that Alcatel-Lucent posted its best-ever IMS sales for a quarter and made significant gains in North America. Meanwhile, Latin America increased its growth by 88 percent this quarter.

The future of the communications in voice-over-WiFi (VoWIFI) could extend the data-based voice market and cause further growth for IMS. Similar to VoIP, VoWIFI can handle an increase capacity compared to legacy networks and can deliver services for much cheaper than the technologies that have come before it.

IHS said there are almost two dozen telecoms across the globe that have launched commercial VoIP services. The push will not stop there, however, because it is expected that several other telecoms will jump on board this year.

Edited by Maurice Nagle