SBCs Up This Year, With Small Fry Gaining Ground

“Demand for enterprise session border controllers (eSBCs) is very strong in North America, where shipments of SBC sessions grew even faster than we forecast for 2012 and where revenue makes up about three-quarters of the global market,” reports Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics Research. “North America’s eSBC dominance is attributable mostly to the growing adoption of SIP trunking, largely by companies who stand to benefit from trunking centralization.” According to Infonetics, the global eSBC market grew 9 percent to $180 million in 2012, and the group expects double-digit-percentage growth to return this year; looking ahead, Infonetics forecasts the worldwide eSBC market will grow at a 17-percent CAGR by 2017. On the vendor front, Cisco was slightly ahead of Acme Packet (being acquired by Oracle) last year, and all vendors except Acme Packet increased their eSBC revenue in 2012, with many of the smaller eSBC vendors gaining marketshare.