Revenues from the Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) segment grew to 16% of the VoLTE market in 1Q18, according to a recently published report from Dell'Oro Group.
According to the market research firm, NFV is the fasted growing sub-segment in VoLTE and is expected to account for more than 30% of the market one year from now. The VoLTE market includes other major components such as Session Border Controllers, Voice Application Servers, and the IMS Core (including Call Session Control Functions and Home Subscriber Servers).
Nokia ranked as the number one VoLTE vendor on an overall basis as well as in the NFV sub-segment, followed by Ericsson which came second in the market. Other VoLTE vendors tracked by Dell'Oro Group include Cisco, Huawei, Mavenir, Metaswitch, Oracle, Ribbon Communications and ZTE.
David Bolan, Senior Analyst, Dell'Oro Group
The rate of adoption is accelerating for NFV in VoLTE. Service Providers are implementing cloud-native virtual network functions in preparation for 5G. Preparing for 5G is a tipping point for the move to cloud-based architectures, and cloud-native NFV solutions are imperative for service providers to be able to deliver on the promises of new services in 5G. US service providers are leading the charge and other regions are moving aggressively to NFV including China, South Korea, Japan, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.
