FMC Phones Hit $7.6B in 2Q08; FMC Network Elements on Target to Grow 82% in 2008

Market research firm Infonetics Research reports that sales of dual mode cellular/WiFi phones, including dual service and UMA and IMS seamless FMC client phones, hit US $7.6 billion in 2Q08 and are expected to be up 16% for the year, indicating healthy growth for converged cellular/WiFi services in both enterprise and consumer market segments.

Meanwhile, the nascent FMC network element market, which launched last year and includes UMA network controllers (UNCs), voice call continuity (VCC) application servers, and multi-access convergence gateways, grew 5-fold from 2006 to 2007 and is forecast to grow another 7-fold between 2007 and 2011 worldwide.

"UMA continues to dominate the worldwide seamless FMC market, and remains a 2-horse race, with unabated deployments at T-Mobile USA and Orange in Europe, which, as anticipated, is launching 3G UMA. In addition, Rogers Wireless has now joined the UMA bandwagon in North America. We expect all the phone and equipment segments in the niche FMC market to grow rapidly, with the economic downturn actually making T-Mobile USA's offering more attractive to stretched consumers," said Stƒİphane Tƒİral, principal analyst at Infonetics Research and co-author of the report.

Other highlights from the report:

• Nokia is the worldwide dual mode cellular/WiFi phone market share leader by far in 2Q08, followed by Samsung, which has been consistently ramping up sales
• Ericsson leads the worldwide UMA network controller market, followed by Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent
• The number of worldwide seamless FMC subscribers is rising rapidly, jumping from 1.7 million in 2007 to 9.7 million in 2008
• The number of FMC phone units is expected to nearly quintuple in the 5 years from 2007 to 2011
• Brasil Telecom's VCC initiative, the first large scale VCC deployment for residential services, is adding steam to the VCC application server market
• The multi-access convergence gateway market is building some momentum, with strong activity in India and growing interest in other parts of the world

Posted to the site on 27th October 2008

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