The network function virtualization (NFV) market in Asia Pacific will grow to $9.24 billion in 2022, according to an ABI Research report.

Japan is the largest single NFV market within the Asia Pacific region, constituting 25.7 percent of the total network function virtualization revenue.

South Korea at 22.7 percent and China with 14.6 percent are the second and third largest NFV markets in Asia Pacific.

“Japan leads in the region, not only because of the desire to design resilient and reliable networks in preparation for future disaster threats, but also to prepare for the 2020 Summer Olympics,” said Lian Jye Su, senior analyst at ABI Research.

The report said South Korea and China are preparing for 5G, which requires both cloud radio access networks (C-RAN) and Cloud Core Networks.

Tier Two telecom operators such as Banglalink and Ncell are currently deploying virtual subscriber data management platforms.

The report did not mention about Indian telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Reliance Jio, among others.

In July 2017, SK Telecom launched T-MANO, its own network function virtualization management and orchestration (MANO) platform. This move is contrary to major Chinese telecoms, who opt to collaborate with large number of vendors and other telecoms in ONAP to develop a common MANO platform.

The report said telecoms in China aim to become the catalyst for the government “Made in China 2025” strategy. Through their NFV initiatives, Chinese telecoms can empower local industrial players with new capabilities, such as multi-access edge computing, massive machine type communications, dynamic cloud services and vehicle-to-everything communications.

The recent NFV interoperability test between Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia are important for the telecom industry. Collaboration among big telecom equipment makers allows telecoms to use the multi-vendor NFV deployment and benefit from the open source nature of NFV.