Growth in the sector, which sees flexible networking for enterprises, is set to be driven by extensive adoption of SD-WAN solutions as global organisations look to upgrade their networking infrastructure to remove expensive legacy maintenance costs.
SD-WAN growth will also be driven by the increasing adoption of cloud-based applications and platforms, as flexible solutions allow remote users and devices to connect to the cloud across secure connections.
According to the Global Market Insights report, the physical appliance segment held around 75% of SD-WAN market share in 2018, with physical appliances containing most of the SD-WAN functionality.
This is set to shift, as the managed services segment in the SD-WAN market is predicted to see a compound annual growth rate of over 65% between 2019 and 2025. This sector is expected to see significant growth as more enterprises look to outsource the implementation of their WAN infrastructure to operators and managed service providers.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the manufacturing market is expected to benefit greatly from the SD-WAN growth , with over 60% growth rate predicted from 2019 to 2025. This will be driven in part by demand for more internet of things solutions which require more network visibility, Global Market Insights predicts.
Regionally, Asia Pacific will lead the way in terms of growth at over 61% forecast across the period. A number of Asian operators are already engaging with network virtualisation technologies, including China Telecom, which picked ZTE for a provisional cloud resource pool pre-commercial trial SDN project.