One of my closer friends, who happens to be a doctor, is filling me in on news about the US economy these days. Doctors here have a poor reputation of knowing anything beyond their profession. But when we parted ways yesterday he asked me whether I was going to keep an eye out for Fed rate cut this week. If my friend is tracking the situation, I guess it must be worrying then. But to cheer our American friends up, my estimates suggest that the US has – as long expected - overtaken Japan in retail VoIP subscriber numbers.

At the end of December 2007, US had an estimated 16.1 million subscribers while Japan had a total of 15.7 million. Another development that has taken place is that NTT has emerged as the largest retail VoIP service provider in the world. With 5.032 million customers, it overtook Softbank BB in 4Q07 who actually slipped back from 4.8 million subscribers as of end 2006 to around 4.3 million VoIP subscribers. After NTT, therefore, Comcast is number 2 VoIP service provider in the world. In total, there were estimated 64.7 million retail VoIP subscribers worldwide as of end December 2007.

• 656k subscriber lines
• Net additions were 65k for the quarter, of which approximately 2,000 were migrations from the circuit-switched platform
• Cable’s Internet subscriber base at the end of the quarter was 1.46m

• VoIP subscribers: 2.9 million, representing 12% penetration of service-ready homes passed
• Added 285,000 VoIP subscribers during the quarter
• VoIP now available to all customers on systems acquired from Adelphia and Comcast
• On … I guess … the threat of possible patent suit: “Unlike Internet phone providers, such as Vonage, TWC does not utilize the public Internet to transport telephone calls.” TWC outsources call termination to Sprint
• Continued roll out VoIP services to SMEs. Numbers not revealed

• 959k VoIP Subscribers
• Added 155,300 new subs during 4Q07, the most active VoIP quarter so far
• The company added 513k customers during the year 2007
• VoIP represents 10.6% penetration into the overall customer base

• 1.3 million VoIP/Broadband customers
• 740k IPTV subscribers, up 73% y-o-y
• Fastweb’s network has been extended to cover 11.4 million households or 50% of Italian population

• VoIP subscribers in Norway 131K
• VoIP subscribers in Sweden 202K
• VoIP subscribers in Denmark 99K

Here are some of findings from 4Q07 minutes data survey:

• Service providers worldwide recorded an estimated traffic volume of 351.5 billion VoIP minutes during 4Q07. Actual volume (after double and triple counts*) is around 322.8 billion.

• Split: 81.7 billion local, 221.3 billion national long distance (nld), 19.8 billion international long distance (ild) if you disregard the double counts

• Local split: 77.9 bn is retail VoIP, 3.8 is wholesale local VoIP i.e white labelling and termination for small providers. The 77.9 billion also includes iPAS local call volume in China

Continue reading "VoIP clocked 351.5 billion minutes in 4Q07" »

In 4Q07, vendors shipped an estimated 9.8 million VoIP Subscriber Feature Server licenses for deployment in service provider networks, generating $177.4 million in revenue. The number of lines is up by 34% Q-o-Q. The growth is due to high VoBB activity in Europe and among Cable MSOs in North America. In Asia-Pacific VoBB growth is still confined to Japan mostly.

Carrier VoIP equipment market has had a great 4Q07 across most equipment categories. Carrier spending, it seems, was pushed back to later part of 2007. That was reflected in Q4 results for the industry as whole.

Continue reading "VoIP subscriber licenses grow 34% Q/Q" »

Service Provider VoIP Media Gateway revenue during 4Q07 touched an estimated $234.3 million. That represents a massive q-o-q growth of 55.6%. A total of 9.5 million ports capacity were shipped during 4Q07.

By the number of ports, Huawei led the market with 28.1% market share worldwide, followed by Cisco and Sonus at number 2 and 3 respectively. Sonus emerged market leader in high density gateways.

Continue reading "Service Provider VoIP Media Gateway revenue up 55.6%" »

Nextgen Class 4 softswitch lines revenue during 4Q07 was up 21% from the previous quarter 3Q07. A total of 7.3 million lines were shipped during 4Q07 generating an estimated $108.8 million in revenue. 3Q07 revenues were in the range of $90 million for the segment.

Sonus leads 4Q07 Class 4 softswitch segment with market share of 26.2%. Sonus also leads the North America region, Italtel led the EMEA market while Huawei leads APAC region.

Session Border Controller (SBC) revenue during 4Q07 was up 3.3% from the previous quarter 3Q07. A total of 5.9 million ‘sessions’ capacity were shipped during 4Q07 generating $46.6 million in revenue. 307 revenues were in the range of $45.1 million for the segment.

Acme Packet leads 4Q07 SBC segment with market share of 56%, followed by NextPoint. Vendors who are made significant inroads into the SBC market during 4Q07 include Covergence and Huawei.

I will be posting 4Q07 results/estimates for other VoIP segments tomorrow.

• 1.6 million VoIP subscribers as of end 2007.
• Added 102k during 4Q07 and 383k new subscribers during 2007
• VoIP represents 34% penetration in homes passed
• VoIP represented 8% of overall 2007 revenues. Overall 2007 revenues $6.5 billion
• Possible VoIP patent suits: “Potential liability would be the responsibility of our equipment vendors”

• Carrier VoIP equipment revenues $147m. Best ever VoIP quarter
• Circuit voice equipment revenues in carrier segment: $69m
• Recent VoIP wins: Clearwire
• Enterprise voice equipment revenues $529m (includes both circuit and VoIP products)

• Added 61k new VoIP subscribers during 4Q07. Total subscribers: 847k
• VoIP subscriber base represents 40% penetration into broadband accounts
• Netherlands VoIP market: KPN 847k subscribers; Cable 1.05 million subscribers; Others 280k. Total around 2.18 million subscribers

• 3.2 million residential broadband customers. Same number of VoIP subscribers in theory
• 750K IPTV subscribers, up from 600k at the end of June 2007
• In business VoIP, 40% of new data link customers take up VoIP
• 300k mobile customers which includes a small proportion of WiFi-GSM subscribers

• Telio had 144k subscribers at end 4Q07. Total increase of 4k during 4Q07
• Majority of customers (102k) in Norway
• Revenues: NOK 94.3 million, were up 7% from NOK 89.2 million in 3Q07
• Average monthly revenue per subscriber NOK 268
• Average monthly gross profit per subscriber NOK 173.4 (up from NOK 162.8 in 3Q07).
• Passed 1,000 lines to the SMB market
• 2008 focus area: Mobile VoIP

• 4Q07 VoIP revenues $20.9m, an increase of $1.5m from the previous quarter. Overall net income of $2.1 million.
• VoIP gross margins for the quarter were 64%, increase from 50% in 3Q07.
• One customer accounted for more than 10% of Veraz revenues in 4Q07 : Belgacom International Carrier Services 13% ( VoIP switching and peering).
• Top 10 customers accounted for 53% of Q4 revenues.
• Split: 22% North America, 77% International.
• 32% wireless carriers, 66% wireline carriers.
• Service revenues $5.8m

• Revenues $22.3 million, an increase of 8% from the previous quarter. Overall net income was $9.9 million.
• Quarterly net income (non-GAAP) was $3.8 million.
• One customer accounted for more than 10% of Radvision's revenues in 4Q07: Cisco
• Top 10 customers accounted for 60% of Q4 revenues, an increase from 56% in the 3Q07.
• Geographic split: 61% North America, 22% EMEA and APAC 17%.
• Radvision ended the period with $131 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt.
• Radvision expects first quarter 2008 revenue to be $20 million.
• Scopia 5.5 , HD videoconferencing solution, was the major product/service announced in the quarter
• Yearly revenue $92 million.
• Total Networking Business Unit revenues for the year were $68.7million, a 3% increase over 2006.
• Total Technology Business Unit revenues for the year were $23.3 million, a 4% decrease over 2006.

• VoIP subscription revenue $10.9 million, an increase of $0.3 million from the previous quarter.
• VoIP subscribers: Customers 2,315; Stations 56,005, Sites 4,024.
• VoIP ARPU: Customers $1,635; Stations $64; Sites $924.
• IP trunking revenues of $1.4 million.
• 530,000 access lines in service.
• LPVA (line-powered voice access) recently launched with EarthLink.

• Estimated 1.9 million VoIP subscribers at the end of 4Q07.
• 21CN update: More than 35% of UK core network already rebuilt,
• Wholesale Broadband Connect, ADSL2+ rollout from Spring 2008 with speeds of up to 24Mb available.
• During the quarter the number of IPTV subscribers more than doubled to 120k. Latest Feb figures released: 150k subscribers.
• Stopped marketing BT Fusion, the incumbent’s FMC services that had signed up under 50k subscribers.

• Revenues $31.4 million, up 32% y-o-y and 6% q-o-q

• Geographic split: 45% North America, 55% Rest. Direct 31%, Indirect 69%

• Three channel partners, Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, were 10%+ customers in the quarter and represented 46% of the company’s quarterly total revenue

Continue reading "Acme Packet 4Q07 Update" »

• Added 56,000 net subscriber lines during the quarter to end the year at nearly 2.6 million lines.
• Lost 230k customers during the quarter. Average monthly customer churn during the quarter stood at 3%
• Marketing cost of customer acquisition: $223 per customer. Total marketing costs during the quarter: $63 million.
• IP litigation costs during the quarter were $1.3m compared to $133m in the previous quarter
• 4Q07 revenues $216 million, 2% increase q-o-q and 19% increase y-o-y. Net loss $9 million
• ARPU: $28.19 down from $28.24 in 3Q07.
• Current cash and marketable securities and restricted cash at quarter end was $190 million.

• Added over 2.5 million VoIP subscribers during the Year 2007 - an increase of 61%.

• Comcast ended 2007 with a total of 4.4 million VoIP subscribers.

• VoIP service now marketed to 42 million homes representing 86% of Comcast's footprint

• 4.4 million VoIP base represents 11% penetration of the total Comcast addressable market

• Phone revenue increased 85% to $1.8 billion due to significant growth in VoIP subscribers, offset by a $229 million, or 50% decline in circuit-switched phone revenues as Comcast transitions to marketing only VoIP in most areas.

• Entering 2008, Comcast has fewer than 200,000 circuit-switched customers, with the winding down of that business expected to be completed by the end of 2008.

• Comcast ended 2007 with 13.2 million high-speed Internet subscribers, or 27% penetration of homes passed.

• 4.102 million VoBB subscribers in France as of end 4Q07. Added 617k subscribers during 4Q07.
• VoBB subscriber base represents about 36% ADSL customer accounts.
• 677k VoBB customers outside France (mainly in the UK). Poland: 132k VoIP subscribers, other European countries 544k.
• IP TV Subscribers: France 1,149k, Poland 40k, other European countries 54k.
• Orange Unik FMC subscribers: 573k users as of October 2007, up from 468k users at end 3Q07.

VoIP lines were up 50k during the quarter to 436k (out of 1.5 million Internet subscribers)

The company added over 170k VoIP customers in F2007

VoIP rolled out to over 80% of the company’s footprint

Exploring business VoIP opportunities

Now able to offer the triple play of voice, video and data to approximately 85% of homes passed

276 million registered users at the end of 4Q07. That represents 12% increase quarter-over-quarter and 61% increase year-over-year

Skype generated $115 million in revenue during 4Q07, representing 76% year-over-year growth, and 18% growth quarter-over-quarter

83% of the revenues from non-US customers

Posted fourth consecutive quarter of profitability

Skype announced a partnership with MySpace and launched the 3 Skypephone in eight countries including the United Kingdom, Italy and Australia

3Q07 update can be found here

636k VoBB subscribers at end 4Q07. These now include business customers as well

62.5k new additions during 4Q07

Business VoIP is a year old service. It is a 1-4 lines service.

Previous quarter revenues of $52.0 million from VoIP. Previous quarter household penetration rate of VoIP was 23%

655k VoIP customers as of end 4Q07

£157.2m (VoIP plus free broadband bundled in) revenue for the year 2007. £72m loss

Customer service and provisioning issues with VoIP

Total broadband base over 2.6m through various offerings. Total on-net base 1.6m on its own unbundled network

No increase in churn levels despite significant numbers of VoIP customers coming out of their initial 18 month contract

2.7m voice customers which includes TDM voice customers

1533 exchanges enabled with VoIP capability (see this earlier post)