Carrier VoIP Equipment Market Leaps 69%

The market for carrier VoIP equipment rose 69% over last year, and will reach $4.8 billion in 2007, up from $1.3 billion in 2003, says new research from Infonetics Research. Sales for the third quarter of this year were $452 million, up 13% from the second quarter.

Infonetics' Next Gen Voice Products report also found Nortel is the revenue leader in the Class 5 softswitch market, with almost half the worldwide revenue, while Siemens is in second place. Cisco leads in worldwide media gateway revenue market share, but most sales are due to its universal port RAS and are not solely used for VoIP, the report claims. Sonus is in second place.

The worldwide media gateway market grew 5% from the second quarter to the third quarter, with most growth coming from ATM switch-based voice gateways. Class 5 softswitch revenue was up 34% compared to the previous quarter, with a total of $76 million in sales.

"Most equipment categories saw sequential growth this quarter," Infonetics Research's Kevin Mitchell, directing analyst and co-author of the report, said in a statement. "Voice application servers, session border controllers, and softswitches, especially Class 5 licenses and revenue, grew the most. This indicates that service providers are really beginning to change gears, from investing in infrastructure to investing in next gen equipment that will allow them to offer new services."

The Next Gen Voice Products report tracks media gateways (Class 5 packet switches, RAC VoIP gateways, ATM switch voice gateways, and packet voice gateways); media servers; session border controllers; softswitches (Class 4 and Class 5 applications); and voice application servers.