Huawei is leading the software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) space ahead of Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Juniper, according to research.
A survey by analyst firm Current Analysis ranked the telecoms giant as the top SDN and NFV provider, as measured by responses provided by 100 senior executives across more than 80 telecoms network operators worldwide.
When asked which vendor they preferred buying SDN and NFV products from, 76% of telecoms operators across the globe selected Huawei ahead of competing vendors including Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Juniper.
The research also found that 77% of integrated operators and 80% of fixed-line and multi-service operators ranked Huawei above other vendors.
Ken Wang, president of Global Marketing and Solution Sales at Huawei, said: "Huawei has been actively promoting the commercialisation of SDN and NFV since the introduction of the SoftCOM strategy in 2012.
"To date, we have partnered with over 20 telcos to conduct more than 60 joint SDN and NFV innovation projects worldwide, and several commercial deployments were successfully completed in 2014."
Jason Marcheck, service director at Current Analysis, added: "With more use cases becoming available and more clearly defined ROI becoming critical to spurring deployments, we foresee 2015 being a crucial time in getting these technologies deployed.
"Accordingly, service providers are going to be looking to highly rated vendors, such as Huawei, to help guide them through what will certainly be a complex adoption and deployment process."
