IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Services - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2026-2031)

The iP multimedia subsystem (IMS) services market size is expected to grow from USD 3.46 billion in 2025 to USD 3.92 billion in 2026 and is forecast to reach USD 7.29 billion by 2031 at 13.24% CAGR over 2026-2031. This report is Segmented by Service (Instant Messaging, Voip, Volte, Vowifi, and Other Services), Component (Products, and Services), Deployment Model (On-Premises, and Cloud-Based), Operator Type (Mobile Network Operators, and Fixed Network Operators), End User (Telecommunication Operators, Enterprises, and More), and Geography. The Market Forecasts are Provided in Terms of Value (USD).

Global IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Services Market Trends and Insights

Increasing Popularity of LTE and VoLTE and Emergence of 5G

Standalone 5G deployments detach voice from legacy LTE anchors, prompting carriers to adopt VoNR, which relies on IMS session control for call setup, codec negotiation, and quality-of-service enforcement. Commercial launches by Free Mobile in France, Viettel in Vietnam, and O2 UK demonstrate that VoNR is production-ready rather than experimental. Operators see additional upside because an IMS-anchored core supports network slicing and low-latency use cases that monetize 5G beyond connectivity. A September 2024 network-API venture formed by Ericsson and 12 leading carriers exposes CAMARA-compliant APIs, allowing developers to trigger bandwidth on demand or location services, thereby turning IMS into a programmable asset for third-party applications. This shift positions voice as only one of many revenue-bearing IMS functions.

Soaring Demand for Rich Communication Services in Business Messaging

RCS traffic reached 50 billion messages in 2025, and revenue is on track to reach USD 4.2 billion by 2029, solidifying IMS-based messaging as a compelling alternative to legacy SMS. Apple’s decision to add RCS to iOS 18 removed the last major interoperability barrier between Android and iPhone ecosystems. With read receipts, verified sender IDs, and rich media, enterprises can now push interactive campaigns across the entire handset base, generating higher engagement and trusted identities that over-the-top apps cannot match. Carriers are launching RCS-as-a-service platforms that integrate with customer relationship management suites, generating sticky recurring fees while offsetting SMS revenue erosion. Each new RCS tenant increases attachment rates for IMS presence, messaging, and security functions, and extends the market from voice into data channels.

Shortage of Skilled IMS Professionals

Cloud-native IMS requires expertise in microservices orchestration, CI/CD pipelines, and multi-vendor API integration, yet most telecom engineers grew up on monolithic or virtualized cores and lack hands-on Kubernetes experience. Operators facing talent gaps often delay migrations or over-rely on vendor-managed services, which drives up costs and risk. Certification programs from the TM Forum and vendor-sponsored boot camps are expanding, but the pace of training still lags behind deployment timelines, particularly in high-growth markets such as India and Saudi Arabia. Vendors are incorporating AI-assisted configuration and auto-healing into their products, enabling fewer engineers to manage larger networks; however, human expertise remains the bottleneck.

Other drivers and restraints analyzed in the detailed report include:

• Surging Operator Investments in Cloud-Native IMS Architectures
• Rapid Transition to Voice over New Radio in Standalone 5G Networks
• Complexity Integrating IMS with Legacy Circuit-Switched Networks

Segment Analysis

The service segment generated the largest single-stream revenue from VoLTE, capturing 37.95% of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Services market share in 2025. Adoption rose when 4G coverage matured, and VoLTE remains foundational for voice continuity because handsets universally support it. However, enterprise marketing and customer-care teams are pivoting to RCS-enabled Instant Messaging, projected to grow at a 14.41% annual rate through 2031. Apple’s RCS adoption eliminates fragmentation, enabling brands to create a single campaign for the entire smartphone universe, complemented by read receipts and rich media. The higher engagement rate is prompting carriers to launch revenue-sharing models that give them a direct stake in business messaging.

Messaging growth influences traffic patterns on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Services market. Because RCS runs over IMS data channels, each enterprise customer lifts the utilization of presence, group chat, and file-transfer functions. As carriers monetize APIs for verified sender IDs or rich cards, value migrates from simple voice minutes to orchestrated multimedia sessions. VoNR and VoWiFi also gain, but their incremental growth is lower because penetration already nears handset saturation in mature markets. The result is a diversified service mix that buffers operators against flat voice revenue.

IMS core equipment still accounted for 71.88% of overall revenue in 2025, reflecting the hardware and perpetual license heritage of telecom procurement. Session control functions, media gateways, and signaling firewalls dominate capital layouts, especially for greenfield 5G cores in Asia and the Middle East. Yet the fastest expansion is in managed and professional services, set to climb 14.93% annually as carriers outsource the entire lifecycle from design to operations. Telefónica Germany’s five-year cloud-native agreement with Mavenir illustrates the pivot: the operator shifts to a subscription model where the vendor absorbs upgrade risk while guaranteeing performance.

In markets with lean engineering teams, operators prefer turnkey cloud stacks that bundle Kubernetes clusters, continuous-integration pipelines, and in-line security. This demand gives system integrators and software specialists a larger revenue slice while compressing hardware margins. Over time, software-as-a-service contracts linked to active subscriber counts could bring the services slice approach closer to parity with products, further reshaping the revenue mix within the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Services market.

Complete Report Scope:

• By Service
  • Instant Messaging
  • VoIP
  • VoLTE
  • VoWiFi
  • Other Services
• By Component
  • Products
  • Services
• By Deployment Model
  • On-Premises
  • Cloud-Based
• By Operator Type
  • Mobile Network Operators
  • Fixed Network Operators
• By End User
  • Telecommunication Operators
  • Enterprises
  • Emergency Services
• By Geography
  • North America
    • United States
    • Canada
    • Mexico
  • South America
    • Brazil
    • Mexico
    • Rest of South America
  • Europe
    • Germany
    • United Kingdom
    • France
    • Spain
    • Italy
    • Rest of Europe
  • Asia Pacific
    • China
    • India
    • Japan
    • Australia
    • South Korea
    • Rest of Asia Pacific
  • Middle East and Africa
    • Middle East
      • Saudi Arabia
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Qatar
      • Turkey
      • Rest of Middle East
    • Africa
      • South Africa
      • Nigeria
      • Rest of Africa

Geography Analysis

North America retained the leading 41.26% revenue share in 2025. AT&T invested USD 21 billion to USD 22 billion in its network, plans nationwide mid-band 5G reaching 300 million POPs by 2026, and targets 70% Open RAN traffic the same year. T-Mobile’s six-carrier aggregation reached 3.6 Gbps, while Verizon installed 130,000 Open RAN-ready radios, all of which require IMS supervision to ensure synchronized voice and video. The FCC’s Supplemental Coverage from Space ruling enables satellite direct-to-device voice, with partnerships between operators and LEO constellations creating new revenue pools for IMS-anchored calling in rural areas.

The Asia Pacific is forecast to expand at a 14.37% CAGR due to massive 5G adoption. China Mobile counts 810 million 5G connections and is piloting augmented-reality New Calling features using IMS data channels. In India, Reliance Jio has surpassed 1 million 5G sites and is testing network slicing for gaming and enterprise broadband. Bharti Airtel has joined the network-API venture to monetize quality-on-demand. Telstra achieved 340 Mbps uplink on standalone 5G and signed with Starlink for satellite voice coverage. These initiatives enhance the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Services market size in the Asia Pacific, as every incremental 5G user requires an IMS endpoint.

Europe is modernizing its core through cloud projects. Telefónica Germany signed a five-year cloud-native contract with Mavenir in February 2025, and Deutsche Telekom completed a 17 million-line migration one year prior. Free Mobile launched the first commercial VoNR network in September 2024, while O2 UK lit 14 standalone cities in February 2024. The EU’s Digital Decade targets require EUR 148 billion in new connectivity spending, with a significant portion earmarked for all-IP cores that can scale to support 5G standalone traffic. Orange’s Sylva project standardizes telco-cloud blueprints, allowing operators to port IMS workloads across countries without extensive reintegration.

The Middle East and Africa show rapid cloudification. Saudi Telecom Company migrated 74% of voice subscribers to cloud IMS and achieved 54.7% 5G coverage across 8,993 sites. e& UAE demonstrated New Calling with visualized voice, while du UAE reached 5.1 Gbps indoor speeds, highlighting experiential services that rely on IMS data channels. GSMA expects mobile revenues in the region to rise from USD 66 billion in 2023 to USD 88 billion by 2030, resulting in a steady increase in IMS spend.

South America lags in capex but is catching up via cloud-native approaches. Mavenir and Whitestack rolled out an IMS core for an unnamed tier-one carrier in August 2024, demonstrating that multi-vendor best-of-breed stacks can reduce acquisition costs and shorten the time to market. As spectrum auctions finalize in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, carriers are lining up funding from development banks to underwrite VoLTE and later VoNR, supporting the gradual penetration of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) services.

List of Companies Covered in this Report:

• Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Nokia Corporation
• Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
• International Business Machines Corporation
• ZTE Corporation
• Ribbon Communications Inc.
• Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Networks Division)
• Oracle Corporation
• NEC Corporation
• Mavenir Systems, Inc.
• Metaswitch Networks Ltd. (Microsoft Corp.)
• Athonet S.p.A.
• Cirpack SAS
• Italtel S.p.A.
• Mitel Networks Corporation
• Amdocs Ltd.
• Juniper Networks, Inc.
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company
• Fujitsu Ltd.
• Dialogic Corporation
• Enghouse Systems Ltd.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support