LightCounting: Wireless infrastructure market dropped both YoY and sequentially in 1Q23

In the  1stQ2023, the global wireless infrastructure market declined 3% YoY and 17% sequentially, according to LightCounting. Starting a new year with a sequential decline is typical but a YoY drop is abnormal and suggests a declining pattern is in the making. This trend confirms that we have entered the post-peak era.

While the U.S. market posted its steepest drop, the strong 5G rollouts in India and a 5G rebound in Japan, along with stable and sustained activity in EMEA and China, respectively, were not enough to keep the wireless infrastructure market out of the decline. On the open vRAN front, DISH in the U.S., Rakuten Mobile in Japan, and a few Rakuten Symphony customers kept the market flat YoY and produced double digit sequential growth.

Despite a weak quarter, Huawei retook its lead at the expense of Ericsson, which reported weak 1Q23 results that led to a market share loss. In the meantime, Nokia benefited from the 2 leaders’ market share loss and gained 1% point. ZTE also gained share at the expense of Huawei and Ericsson while Samsung’s share remained stable.

“We have passed the 5G peak and have entered the second year of a disinvestment cycle. The 5G investment cycle that started in 2019 and ended in 2021 was driven by hundreds of communications service providers (CSPs), including the world’s largest cellular footprints (i.e., China). At the moment, India’s massive 5G rollout is preventing the situation from getting worse but this will end soon,” said Stéphane Téral, Chief Analyst at LightCounting Market Research.

As a result, this year, LightCounting expects the wireless infrastructure market to slightly decline in 2023 (compared to 2022) with India in the lead. In the long run, our service provider 20-year wireless infrastructure footprint pattern analysis points to a 2022-2028 CAGR of -3% characterized by low single-digit declines through 2027, which appears to be the bottom leading to flatness or slight growth in 2028. In fact, we expect 5G to slightly pick up in 2027, driven by upgrades needed to prepare networks for 6G. Given the ongoing 6G activity, we believe something labeled 6G will be deployed in 2028.

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Separately, Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group said, “Not surprisingly, growth is now transitioning away from the advanced markets towards the slower-to-adopt 5G markets. But the speed of this shift was perhaps a bit surprising as the pendulum swung drastically towards the positive in India while the North American RAN market performed much worse than expected.  And from a supplier perspective, vendor rankings were, for the most part, stable in the quarter. Vendor revenue shares, however, were impacted by the vastly different growth trajectories across the suppliers,” continued Pongratz.

Highlights from Dell’Oro’s 1Q 2023 RAN report:

  • Top 5 RAN 1Q 2023 RAN suppliers include Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung.
  • Top 4 RAN 1Q 2023 RAN suppliers outside of China include Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and Samsung.
  • Nokia recorded the highest growth rate among the top 5 suppliers, while Ericsson and Samsung both lost some ground in the first quarter.
  • The report also shows that Nokia’s RAN revenue share outside of China has been trending upward over the past five quarters.
  • The Asia Pacific RAN market has been revised upward to reflect the higher baseline in India.

Open RAN and vRAN highlights from Dell’Oro’s 1Q 2023 RAN report:

  • After more than doubling in 2022, Open RAN revenue growth was in the 10 to 20 percent range in the first quarter while the vRAN market advanced 20 to 30 percent.
  • Positive developments in the Asia Pacific region were dragged down by more challenging comparisons in the North America region.
  • Short-term projections remain unchanged – Open RAN is still projected to account for 6 to 10 percent of the 2023 RAN market.
  • Top 5 Open RAN suppliers by revenue for the 2Q 2022 to 1Q 2023 period include Samsung, NEC, Fujitsu, Rakuten Symphony, and Mavenir.
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About the LightCounting Report:
Wireless Infrastructure quarterly report analyzes the wireless infrastructure market worldwide and covers 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G radio access network (RAN) and core network nodes. It presents historical data from 2016 to 2022 of quarterly market size and vendor market shares, and a detailed market forecast through 2028 for 2G/3G/4G/5G RAN, including open vRAN, and core networks (EPC, vEPC, and 5GC) for each region (North America, Europe Middle East Africa, Asia Pacific, Caribbean Latin America). The historical data accounts for the sales of more than 30 wireless infrastructure vendors, including vendors that shared confidential sales data with LightCounting. The market forecast is based on a model correlating wireless infrastructure vendor sales with 20 years of service provider network rollout pattern analysis and upgrade and expansion plans.
Historical data accounts for sales of the following vendors:
Vendor Segments Source of Information
Affirmed Networks (acquired by Microsoft, April 2020) vEPC, 5GC Estimates
Altran vRAN Estimates
Altiostar vRAN (CU, DU) Estimates
Amdocs 5GC Estimates
ASOCS vRAN (DU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Baicell RAN (RU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Benetel Open RAN (RU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Cisco EPC, vEPC, 5GC Survey data and estimates
China Information and Communication Technologies Group (CICT) RAN Estimates
Comba Telecom RAN/vRAN (RU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
CommScope (acquired Phluido vRAN patents, October 2020) vRAN (RU, DU) Estimates
Corning vRAN Estimates
Dell vRAN (DU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Enea 5GC Estimates
Ericsson RAN, vRAN, 2/3G Core, EPC, vEPC, 5GC Estimates
Fairwaves RAN/vRAN (RU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Fujitsu RAN Survey data and estimates
HPE 2G/3G core, 5GC Estimates
Huawei RAN, vRAN, 2/3G Core, EPC, vEPC, 5GC Survey data and estimates
JMA Wireless vRAN Estimates
KMW RAN/vRAN (RU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Kontron vRAN (DU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Mavenir (acquired ip.access, September 2020) vEPC, vRAN, 5GC Survey data and estimates
Metaswitch (acquired by Microsoft, May 2020) 5GC, vEPC and 2G/3G core Estimates
Movandi RAN/vRAN (RU/repeater) Estimates
MTI Mobile vRAN (RU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Node-H vRAN (small cells) Estimates
Nokia RAN, vRAN, 2/3G Core, EPC, vEPC, 5GC Survey data and estimates
NEC (including Blue Danube) RAN, vRAN (RU), EPC, 5GC Survey data and estimates
Oracle 5GC Estimates
Parallel Wireless vRAN (CU, DU) Estimates
Pivotal RAN/vRAN (RU/mmWave repeater) Estimates
Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT) vRAN (DU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Qucell RAN, vRAN Estimates
Ribbon Communications 2G/3G core Survey data and estimates
Samsung RAN, vRAN, vEPC, 5GC Estimates
Silicom Open RAN (DU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
SuperMicro Computer vRAN (DU) None, supplies other RAN/vRAN vendors
Verana Networks RAN/vRAN (RU/mmWave) Estimates
ZTE RAN, vRAN, 2/3G Core, EPC, vEPC, 5GC Survey data and estimates
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