The Wireless Packet Core market grew 27 percent in the third quarter of this year versus the same quarter last year, marking the first year-over-year revenue increase for the market in 2010, according to a new report from Dell’Oro Group. 
The growth was due in large part to Chinese operators beginning to aggressively invest in their packet core networks after exhausting initial capacity, and, in the case of China Unicom, also preparing for the introduction of a highly popular smartphone, the iPhone 4.
According to the report, Huawei and ZTE achieved strong market share gains in the third quarter. Specifically, Huawei ended the third quarter with 31 percent of the market, up from 23 percent in the second quarter, while ZTE grew from 9 percent in the second quarter to 12 percent in the third quarter.
“We expect continued volatility in quarterly vendor share results,” said Greg Collins, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Although Huawei and ZTE benefited in the third quarter because of the growth in China, we expect Ericsson, Nokia Siemens and Cisco will benefit in the fourth quarter as the market shifts towards North America. We anticipate that North American operators will be preparing for greater uptake of smartphones and tablet devices during the holiday season, and as the operators exhaust their annual capital budgets,” added Collins.
