The worldwide subscriber data management (SDM) market grew 29 percent in 2014 compared to 2013, to $1.4 billion, fueled by operator demand for voice over LTE (VoLTE) and subscriber analytics, according to technology market research firm Infonetics Research. This is mainly driven by the cost savings and operational efficiencies associated with reducing the number of subscriber data repositories, particularly in emerging markets facing rapid subscriber growth.
According to Infonetics, as SDM evolves to an independent backend solution that can enable emerging areas such as identity and analytics, it will create new opportunities for alternative vendors that may not have an entrenched presence in the HSS and home location register (HLR) markets. Virtualization of front-end applications such as home subscriber server (HSS) and policy and charging rules function (PCRF) are well underway, and virtualization of the backend SDM platform is following suit, but concerns about reliability, availability and security persist.
Infonetics, however said that despite growing interest in SDM, barriers to adoption remain, including interoperability concerns, subscriber data sensitivity and organizational silos.
Shira Levine, Research Director for Service Enablement and Subscriber Intelligence at Infonetics Research
Voice over LTE is continuing to drive SDM spending in developed markets as operators look to manage their subscriber data over multiple network domains. We expect the adoption of voice over WiFi to have a similar effect. However, momentum around big data and analytics has the potential to have an even more significant impact on the SDM market, as operators seek to break down the data silos that exist within their organizations and better leverage subscriber data to improve the customer experience and drive additional revenue.
