According to a newly released report by Exact Ventures, in 1Q16, the enterprise session border controller (E-SBC) market grew 29% versus 1Q15, while the service provider (SP-SBC) segment grew 1% over the same timeframe.  The flatness in the SP-SBC segment was due to unexpected weakness in the wireless sub-segment, a trend which we expect to reverse throughout the remainder of 2016 as VoLTE-related sales accelerate.

We forecast that total market growth will accelerate in 2016 to 32% as both the E-SBC and SP-SBC markets continue to benefit from an accelerated migration to IP services

VoLTE is continuing to gain momentum worldwide but VoLTE roaming continues to be delayed.  There does not seem to be a lot of urgency for operators to solve the VoLTE roaming issue as CSFB seems to be sufficient for the moment.  The E-SBC market continues its strong growth with 29% Y/Y growth as strong growth in SIP trunking and hosted or cloud-based UC services are driving demand.  We expect that VoLTE-related shipments will rebound throughout the year and that the total market will grow 32% as the SP-SBC market grows 36% and the E-SBC market grows 27%.

This quarter we began breaking out Edgewater Networks from the Others category.  Edgewater has been quite successful at selling E-SBC for CPE applications particularly to cable operators in North America.  Many cable MSOs have targeted small businesses with hosted UC services and have been adding around 1200 customers per month each, with each customer accounting for perhaps 20 seats on average.

Companies covered in the report include:
Adtran
AudioCodes
Avaya
Cisco
Dialogic
Edgewater Networks
Ericsson
GENBAND
Huawei
Ingate
Italtel
Mitel
Metaswitch
Nokia
Oracle
Sonus
ZTE