Propelled by API exposure platforms and enterprise and small- and medium-sized business (SMB) services, the global market for service delivery platform (SDP) software and services grew 13% in 2014 to just under $4,7-billion, according to a new report by technology market research firm Infonetics Research, now part of HIS.
Infonetics’ SDP Software and Services report tracks the mobile and fixed-line SDP software and services that operators use to create and deliver services to their subscribers.
“Virtualisation is a hot topic throughout the communications industry right now, and the service delivery platform (SDP) segment is no exception,” says Shira Levine, directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence at Infonetics.
“Though the majority of operators — particularly Tier 1s in established markets — continue to be most comfortable with on-premise solutions deployed on purpose-built hardware, we’re seeing a growing interest in virtualising the SDP on a private cloud, particularly among large multinational operators looking to better leverage shared resources,” says Levine.
“There is also emerging demand for software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS), which provide operators with a lower-risk and more cost-effective way to trial different lines of business, such as mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) offerings and machine-to-machine (M2M) services.”
According to the report, operators are going beyond traditional APIs and exposing capabilities such as ringback tones, missed call notification, policy management, authentication and authorisation, and subscriber analytics.
The consumer opportunity continues to drive service delivery platform spending in emerging regions, while more developed markets are focusing investments on enterprise and SMB services, including the burgeoning M2M opportunity.
Ericsson and Huawei are neck-and-neck at the top of the SDP revenue market share leaderboard.
Infonetics projects the worldwide combined SDP software and services market to reach $6,7-billion by 2019.
