IHS (NYSE: IHS) today released excerpts from its IHS Infonetics NFV Hardware, Software, and Services report, which forecasts the global network functions virtualization (NFV) hardware, software and services market to reach $11.6 billion in 2019, up from $2.3 billion in 2015.

“NFV represents operators’ shift from a hardware focus to software focus, and our forecasts show this. We believe NFV software will comprise over 80 percent of the $11.6 billion total NFV revenue in 2019,” said Michael Howard, senior research director for carrier networks at IHS.

“The software is always a much larger investment than the server, storage and switch hardware, representing about $4 of every $5 spent on NFV,” Howard said.

MORE NFV MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• Service providers are still early in the long-term, 10- to 15-year transformation to virtualized networks
• Revenue from outsourced services for NFV projects is projected to grow at a 71 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019
• Revenue from software-only video content delivery network (CDN) functions for managing and distributing data is forecast by IHS to grow 30-fold from 2015 to 2019

NFV REPORT SYNOPSIS

The 2015 IHS Infonetics NFV Hardware, Software, and Services market research report tracks outsourced services for network functions virtualization (NFV) projects as well as service provider NFV hardware , including NFV infrastructure (NFVI) servers, storage and switches; and NFV software split out by service management and orchestration (NFV MANO) software and virtual network function (VNF) software, including virtual routers (vRouters) and the software-only functions of mobile core and EPC, IMS, PCRF and DPI, security, video content delivery networks (CDN), and other VNF software. The research service provides worldwide and regional market size, forecasts through 2019, in-depth analysis and trends.