Infonetics Research: Ericsson, Nokia Siemens widen RAN market lead; mobile softswitch market up 33%

Communications market research firm Infonetics Research reports that worldwide sales of radio access network (RAN) equipment inched up a percent to $10.2 billion in 2Q08, after market leaders Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks each increased their worldwide revenue by 5%, reinforcing their strong #1 and #2 leadership positions (respectively).

Infonetics' report, Mobile Network Infrastructure Equipment and Subscribers, shows that the slight sequential increase in worldwide RAN equipment revenue was primarily driven by strong GSM deployments in India, China, and Africa, and by W-CDMA deployments in North America. By contrast, the North American CDMA market slumped in 2Q08, down 40% sequentially.

eanwhile, the mobile softswitching segment jumped 33% in 2Q08 to $1.4 billion, led by huge quarterly sales increases for soft mobile switching centers (soft MSCs) and wireless media gateways, propelled by a spike in China Mobile deployments.

"The bright spots in the mobile network equipment market continue to be the mobile packet core and mobile softswitching segments, driven by service provider migration to IP-based architectures. Soft MSCs, which provide call control, signaling, and intelligence for mobile networks, are particularly hot, with worldwide licenses expected to more than double between 2007 and 2011," said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure at Infonetics.

Other highlights from the report:

--  The strong GSM market helped propel Huawei past Nortel for the #4 spot
    in worldwide RAN equipment revenue market share in 2Q08; Alcatel-Lucent
    maintains its #3 position
--  The number of worldwide mobile subscribers hit 3.3 billion in 2007 and
    will grow to 5.2 billion by 2011
--  More than 1/2 of all new mobile subscribers will hail from Asia
    Pacific by 2009
--  Sales of home location registers (HLRs) (centralized databases that
    store mobile subscriber information and profiles) are down 1% sequentially,
    but up 23% year-over-year, driven by network upgrades and new network
    deployments
    

Infonetics' quarterly report provides market size, market share, and forecasts for mobile network infrastructure equipment by technology (GSM, W-CDMA, CDMA/CDMA2000, microcells, picocells), including RAN, mobile switching subsystem, mobile core network, and HLR equipment. The report also tracks mobile subscribers by technology (GSM, W-CDMA, CDMA, CDMA2000).

Companies tracked include Alcatel-Lucent, Apertio, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Samsung, Starent, UTStarcom, ZTE, and others.

For report highlights, log in to Infonetics' online portal from www.infonetics.com (see Wireless and FMC area). For sales, contact Larry Howard, vice president, at larry@infonetics.com or +1 (408) 583-3335.

Infonetics Research (www.infonetics.com) is an international market research and consulting firm serving the communications industry since 1990. A leader in defining and tracking emerging and established technologies in all world regions, Infonetics helps clients plan, strategize, and compete more effectively.