Dell’Oro: Global RAN Market to Drop 21% between 2021 and 2029
According to a new report from Dell’Oro Group, the overall RAN market is now facing a second consecutive year of steep declines. That follows 40 to 50% revenue growth between 2017 and 2021. While the pace of decline is expected to moderate after 2024, downward pressure is likely to persist until 6G becomes a reality.
In addition to the typical market fluctuations that have shaped the RAN landscape over the past 30-plus years, the overpromising of 5G and its inability to significantly alter the flat revenue trend among operators are fueling increased skepticism regarding the need for substantial investments in new technologies (like 5G Advanced, 5G RedCap or O-RAN).
“Some skepticism is warranted. After all, operators invested over $2 trillion in wireless capex between 2010 and 2023 to build out 4G and 5G, yet revenues remain flat,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President of RAN and Telecom Capex research at Dell’Oro Group. “Looking ahead, operators will need to optimize their spectrum roadmaps to address various data traffic scenarios. Our base case assumes that mobile data traffic growth will continue to slow, enabling operators to improve their capital intensity ratios, which will in turn put further downward pressure on the RAN market. However, additional capacity will eventually be required, and at that point, leveraging larger spectrum bands and the existing macro grid will likely offer the most cost-effective solution,” Pongratz added.
Additional highlights from the new 6G Advanced Research Report:
- Total RAN revenues are projected to trend downward until 2029
- 6G RAN revenues to approach $30 B by 2033
- Sub-7 GHz and CM-wave macros are expected to dominate the 6G mix by 2033
Dell’Oro Group’s 6G Advanced Research Report offers a complete overview of the RAN market by region and by technology, with tables covering manufacturers’ revenue for 5G NR and 6G by frequency, including Sub-7 GHz, cmWave, and mmWave. The report also covers Cloud RAN, small cells, and Massive MIMO. To purchase this report, please contact by email at [email protected].
References:
6G RAN to Approach $30 B by 2033, According to Dell’Oro Group
https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2023/6/cm-wave-spectrum-6g-potent-enabler
Dell’Oro: RAN market still declining with Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung top vendors
Dell’Oro & Omdia: Global RAN market declined in 2023 and again in 2024
Highlights of Dell’Oro’s 5-year RAN forecast
Dell’Oro: RAN market declines at very fast pace while Mobile Core Network returns to growth in Q2-2023
Dell’Oro: 2023 global telecom equipment revenues declined 5% YoY; Huawei increases its #1 position
As evidence of the continued RAN market decline, Nokia’s mobile networks equipment unit sales fell 19% for the year, with North America and India both registering strong falls in the 3rd quarter. Nokia and Ericsson have been waiting for a sales increase after the first phase of 5G deployments in North America were completed and as frantic rollouts in India have returned to normalized levels.
But it’s not happening yet.
https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/nokia-lowers-earnings-guidance-after-sales-fail-to-recover-4349167c
Ericsson on October 15th said North America sales had begun to rebound, but that was almost entirely due to a $14 billion AT&T contract for “Open-RAN” (i.e. it’s hardly “OPEN” as Ericsson is the only vendor). The contract calls for Ericsson 4G/5G gear replace comparable Nokia equipment. Ericsson deployments started to ramp up in the latest quarter, but that rate is expected to ease a little in the fourth quarter and into next year, Ericsson Chief Financial Officer Lars Sandstrom said on an analyst call after Ericsson earnings were announced on Tuesday.
The Swedish company’s 4th quarter network sales are expected to grow at a slower pace than is usual for the time of year and analysts at JPMorgan said in a note to clients that sales estimates will probably need to fall by 1% to 2% as a result.
“We expect our networks sales to stabilize year-on-year during the fourth quarter, driven by continued good growth in North America,” Chief Executive Borje Ekholm said.
https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/ericsson-expects-market-to-stabilize-as-key-north-america-sales-rise-539e5716
Data from Omdia, a Light Reading sister company, gave Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia, the three largest suppliers, a whopping 75.1% of the entire global market in 2023, an increase of 0.2 percentage points on the 2022 figure. ZTE and Samsung, the fourth- and fifth-biggest players, respectively, claimed another 20%.
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/after-losing-nokia-crisis-hit-intel-seeks-network-assets-buyer