Telecom Lead America: Ericsson will lead the IMS market. The market growth will be primarily driven by GSMA VoLTE.

ABI Research forecasts IMS revenues to reach $3.4 billion in the next five years.

Top 5 mobile infrastructure vendors Ericsson, Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and ZTE will capture most of this new market growth as the mobile share of IMS rises to 50 percent. Ericsson will lead the growth, according to ABI Research.

There is also room in this market for innovative new entrants and IMS Add-On vendors.

IMS is the means to deliver the evolved voice core in the case of GSMA VoLTE.

Till now, wireline operators have been the largest market for IMS services

“Since LTE is a packet data network,” said Joe Hoffman, principal analyst for mobile networks, “operators are keen to maximize the benefits from their voice and data services. Eliminating the complexities of supporting separate voice and data only networks will also prove valuable as the mobile devices and networks evolve.”

Operators have the option of using IMS with existing technologies, but since voice services are elegantly handled in 3G, there has been little desire to invest in IMS for mobile voice till now. By embracing GSMA VoLTE, mobile operators will maximize the efficiency of their assets, including spectrum when refarmed for 4G.

Much of the industry is waiting for SR-VCC technology, and VoLTE deployment will accelerate as chipsets and mobiles penetrate the mass market. Big mobile vendors has different ways to deliver IMS / VoLTE, and no doubt operators will find one that best suits their needs. Operators should also consider the pros and cons of the various means of the vendors to deliver CSFB until VoLTE becomes ubiquitous.

Recently, TelecomLead.com reported that Ericsson is leading the IMS market. Infonetics Research said Ericsson continues to be the leading IMS vendor in terms of equipment installed by respondent operators.

Huawei is a real standout in this year’s survey, growing its installed base every year among survey respondents and topping the vendor leadership list for pricing, total cost of ownership, product roadmap, financial stability, and reliability.

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