The global service provider VoIP equipment market – including trunk media gateways, session border controllers (SBCs), media servers, softswitches, voice application servers – lost the 12 percent it gained in the second quarter of 2011, according to new figures released by Infonetics Research (News - Alert).

For the third quarter, the carrier VoIP market was down 12 percent to $441 million, according to the research firm’s “Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers” market share and forecast report.

Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research, pointed out however, that the third quarter tends to be a weak quarter overall in the market.

“Seasonally the third quarter tends to be a weak one for the overall carrier VoIP equipment market, and 3Q11 was no exception. No vendor is immune to the challenges of delayed orders and shifts in technology choices, although there were some standout performances by vendors in 3Q11 in specific segments, including Dialogic, GENBAND, Huawei (News - Alert), Metaswitch and Sonus,” Myers said in a statement.

However, Myers noted that global revenue for session border controllers, or SBCs, is up in the third quarter of 2011, demonstrating the movement to all-IP networks.

“Sequentially, all market segments are down in 3Q11, but from the year-ago quarter (3Q10), there is one bright spot: session border controllers (SBCs), with global revenue up 13 percent. The SBC and voice application controller segments are on track to be up in 2011, reflecting the continued shift to all-IP networks,” Myers said.

Infonetics also said that year-over-year (from 3Q10 to 3Q11), the overall market is down 15 percent. Other highlights from the report include:

• In 3Q11, Huawei gained on GENBAND (News - Alert) to take the lead in the overall service provider VoIP equipment market;
• The growth of VoIP subscribers in fixed and mobile networks, SIP trunking and IP interconnectivity will continue to be important drivers for VoIP equipment; and
• The standout region of the quarter is Central and Latin America, which posted a 14 percent increase in carrier VoIP equipment revenue in 3Q11 over 2Q11, driven by strong VoIP adoption, particularly in Brazil and Mexico.

In other VoIP news, it has been predicted by the year 2016, mobile VoIP solutions will earn approximately $36 billion in annual revenues, largely due to the rising demands from consumers who want to have access to communications solutions while on-the-go, TMCnet reported.

The increasingly popular trend and rapid growth of smartphones is another factor behind the rise of mobile VoIP that will be seen in the near future. In addition, TMCnet reported that the small business VoIP market is growing quickly, with over 30 percent of firms with 100-999 employees utilizing some type of VoIP technology.