4Q 2012 Mobile IP Infrastructure market grew 13.5% Y/Y, reflecting
strong growth in Mobile IP Backhaul and LTE acceleration.
LTE spending in 2012 has
surpassed industry expectations and will continue to grow at unprecedented
levels in 2013. In 4Q 2012, GSMA confirms 32 new LTE networks were commercially
launched, now totaling 134 LTE networks with subscribed customers running
worldwide. Mobile data traffic doubled on global networks in 2012, and is
expected to double again in 2013. The proliferation of Android and iOS is also
pushing up monthly average mobile data usage; ACG estimates smartphone usage on
mobile networks in 2013 will increase to an average 862MB/month, globally.
As mobile SPs undergo service
development and differentiation for LTE networks, they are migrating 3G networks to serve as economy class networks for low- to mid-market segment
service offerings, such as value plans, MVNO wholesale, and M2M communications.
Compared to LTE investments, 3G vendors' revenues still represent the majority of total
market spend but will continue to decline globally over next three years.
4Q 2012 Worldwide Mobile IP Infrastructure Market Share
|
||
Vendor
|
Rank
|
Market Share
|
Cisco
|
1
|
36.3%
|
Ericsson
|
2
|
19.3%
|
Alcatel-Lucent
|
3
|
14.0%
|
NSN
|
4
|
9.7%
|
Huawei
|
5
|
6.5%
|
SON, SDN, and Virtualization: Impact on Mobile IP Network Infrastructure
ACG expects Self-Optimizing
Networks (SON), Software Defined Networking (SDN), and Virtualization to have a
high degree of impact to vendors providing SP Mobile IP Network Infrastructure. Many vendors have plans to announce revised product road maps and
innovations at Mobile World Congress 2013. Currently, Nokia Siemens is the only major
packet core vendor shipping products using commercial off-the-shelf components
using ACTA standard.
ACG expects the market to
radically change and innovate with technology shifts and influences occurring
in SON, SDN, and virtualization. These shifts will threaten vendors’ positions
and value propositions, as network economics evolve and mobile SPs adopt
distributed core architectures.
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