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asia leading voip Asia Leading VoIP/IMS Growth: Synergy
Monday, 03 July 2006

Synergy Research Group reports that the IP Multimedia Subsystem business is growing well worldwide, but that The APAC region has a distinct growth advantage over Europe and North America.

Synergy says sales of softswitches and VoIP media gateways grew over 50% worldwide with APAC contributing the strongest growth of 62 percent.

EMEA and North America (NAM) followed up with growth rates of 60 and 48 percent, respectively.

"Introducing voice to IP has radically changed the future of wired and wireless networks," said Jeremy Duke, President & CEO at Synergy Research Group. "The success of VoIP has already created shifts in market leadership. Now there is a heightened sense of urgency for those vendors who need to strengthen their IMS offerings to pursue partnerships or acquisitions."

VoIP has been a major benefactor to Nortel (despite the recent announcement of restructuring plans). Nortel is the most successful of the established telecom vendors to embrace the migration of Voice to IP, says Synergy.

Nortel's early investments in IP Telephony have resulted in a #1 market share position in Carrier Packet Voice in both Worldwide and North America in Q1 2006.

Sonus and Cisco Systems continue to be the strongest challengers posting substantial growth in NAM and EMEA, respectively. Recent acquisitions and mergers by Ericsson/Marconi, Lucent/Alcatel, and Nokia/Siemens (SP Communications Division) are sure to put pressure on current market share leaders and keep the emerging IMS market dynamic, says the researcher.

Synergy believes IP Multimedia Subsystems market will significantly change the telecommunications industry by enabling new market entrants to overcome barriers of entry and by forcing established players to merge or partner.

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