The carrier VoIP market is off to a strong start in 2015 and shows no signs of letting down, with more providers expanding their offerings and investing in new technologies, according to the IHS Infonetics report ‘Service Provider VoIP and IMS Equipment and Subscribers'.

The report shows the service provider VoIP and IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) equipment market hit $1.3 billion worldwide in the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15), a 29% increase from the same period a year ago.

“VoIP and IMS equipment sales bucked the typically slow first quarter, with year-over-year growth in the first quarter being driven by core IMS solutions and voice application servers,” says Diane Myers, IHS research director for VoIP, UC and IMS.

IHS says, from its recession-low in 2011 of $2.59 billion the global market grew 64% in 2014, to $4.24 billion.

This was fuelled by the network transformation projects of mobile and fixed operators around the world, according to IHS.

As illustrated in the report, all major geographical regions experienced growth in 1Q15 from the prior year.

Out of the vendors, Alcatel-Lucent was a standout in the VoIP and IMS market for the time period, posting its best quarter ever for IMS sales.

Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi) will be big news this year as operators expand or launch IMS networks for VoWiFi, helping to drive incremental sales, says IHS.

Already, 22 operators worldwide have launched commercial voice over LTE (VoLTE) services, and IHS expects additional operators in Asia Pacific, Europe and Canada to take VoLTE online in 2015.