VoLTE Adoption Driving Significant IMS Core Market Growth

The IMS Core market had an enormous Q4, growing by more than 30 percent both sequentially and year-over-year, according to market intelligence firm Exact Venture, which credited the growth to service provider investments in voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) technologies.

Greg Collins, founder and principal analyst at Exact Ventures, said that the IMS Core market is expected to grow by another 60 percent in 2012 as VoLTE services begin being deployed. However, the most substantial impact won't occur until 2013 when VoLTE-enabled handsets become further established.

"IMS Core networks and applications can enable wireline operators to efficiently leverage a common core network for voice, video, and data services," Collins noted in a statement. "For network operators with both wireline and wireless networks, IMS also can potentially unify the core network and applications across a variety of access networks. Thus far, however, there has been little true convergence of wireline and wireless core and application networks."

Currently, the IMS Core market is dominated by three suppliers – Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens – which combine to account for around 85 percent of the total shipments. China's Huawei leads the pack with a 35 percent market share, due mostly to the vast number of IMS projects launched in its home country, followed by Ericsson and Nokia Siemens, which each hold a market share of around 25 percent, says Exact Venture.

For more on the VoLTE market and its impact on the IMS Core market, check out our recap of Alcatel-Lucent's recent white paper, Examining the Case for VoLTE & Rich Media Communications."

The document details a number of the technical, commercial and financial challenges of implementing IMS technologies as well as the myriad of benefits that VoLTE services can provide for operators and subscribers.

A number of U.S. and South Korean carriers are currently testing VoLTE-enabled devices on their LTE networks and are on pace to take VoLTE services mainstream by the first half of 2014, says Alcatel.