Report: World SDN Market to Hit $133B by 2022

Driven by increasing network complexities, among other factors, the global SDN market is projected to reach $133 billion by 2022 with a CAGR of 47% from 2016 to 2022, according to a new report.

The report by Allied Market Research said the SDN market was projected to grow at such a high rate due to complex network traffic patterns, the growing need for mobility services and the proliferation of cloud-computing services.

By separating the control plane from the forwarding plane, SDN, which is often deployed in tandem with NFV, can manage a wide range of network functions via SDN controllers that provide a centralized view.

Enterprises were the early adopters of SDN, and they accounted for 43% of the global market revenues last year, followed by telecommunications service providers. Going forward, the cloud service provider market will have the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2022, according to the report, due to the growth of cloud computing by a multitude of organizations.

Broken down by industries, IT was the largest user of SDN last year with a 22% share of the global market, followed by the telecom industry.

While SDN may trace its roots back to enterprises and data centers, service providers such as AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) and Telefónica have become big proponents. Service providers are branching out from using SDN in their traditional network infrastructures to include more customer-facing applications and services. (See SDN's Second Act: What It Means for Cable.)

North America was the highest revenue-generating region in the SDN market in 2015. The "World Software Defined Networking Market" report said that Asia-Pacific was expected to be the fastest-growing region going forward due continuous upgrades in the networking infrastructure, and the emerging trends of mobility services and bring your own device (BYOD).

— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation