Dell’Oro Group: RAN Market Grows Outside of China in 2Q 2025
Following two years of steep declines, initial estimates by Dell’Oro Group reveal that total RAN revenues—including baseband, radio hardware, and software, excluding services—advanced for a third consecutive quarter outside of China in 2Q 2025.
“Our initial assessment confirms that the narrative we’ve been discussing for some time is now coming to fruition. Market conditions have continued to stabilize, resulting in growth for three consecutive quarters outside of China,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President of RAN market research at the Dell’Oro Group. “However, broader market sentiment remains subdued, and a rapid rebound is not anticipated. The industry acknowledges that short-term fluctuations are unlikely to alter the market’s generally flat long-term trajectory,” Pongratz added.
Additional highlights from the 2Q 2025 RAN report:
- Growth in Europe, as well as the Middle East and Africa, nearly offset declines in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as the Asia Pacific region.
- RAN vendor dynamics are gradually shifting, driven by three major trends: the strong are getting stronger, laggards are not improving, and the market is becoming increasingly divided.
- Ericsson and Huawei together accounted for more than 60 percent of the 1H25 market in North America and China, respectively.
- The top 5 RAN suppliers, based on worldwide revenues for the trailing four quarters, are Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung.
- The short-term outlook remains unchanged, with total RAN expected to stabilize in 2025.
For sure, RAN is not a growth market (+1% CAGR between 2000 and 2023). However, underneath that flattish topline over time, RAN revenues fluctuate significantly as new spectrum/technologies become available. After a massive RAN surge between 2017 and 2021, RAN revenues declined sharply in 2023 and the fundamental question now is fairly straightforward – how will the slowdown in mobile data traffic impact the RAN market over the next five years? The constantly changing and increasingly demanding end-user expectations in combination with the search for growth present opportunities and challenges for incumbent RAN suppliers and new entrants.
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Huawei’s ability to sustain growth during a period of industry volatility can be attributed to several key factors:
- Strong Presence in China: Huawei maintains a commanding position in its home market, which remains one of the largest and most competitive globally. Despite external pressures and restrictions, its domestic strength provides stability and scale.
- Expanding Global Footprint: Growth in regions such as Europe, the Middle East, and Africa helped Huawei offset weaker performance in Asia Pacific, the Caribbean, and Latin America. These markets have been central to Huawei’s strategy of diversifying its global presence.
- Technological Advancements in 5G: Huawei has continued to invest heavily in 5G RAN innovation, leveraging advanced radio hardware, AI-driven network optimization, and energy-efficient base stations. These capabilities strengthen its competitive edge in delivering cost-effective and high-performance solutions.
- Resilient Business Strategy: Despite global challenges, including regulatory restrictions in certain markets, Huawei has adapted by strengthening local partnerships, investing in regional ecosystems, and optimizing supply chain resilience.
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According to the recent Omdia report, Ericsson is the top RAN vendor in both business performance and portfolio strength in 2025, thanks in part to its energy-efficient products, comprehensive support across radio technologies, and Open RAN–ready offerings.
Ericsson also continues expanding its enterprise solutions, with integrated strategies that include private 5G, Cradlepoint, and cloud-native cores. In India, Ericsson signed a multi-billion-dollar 4G/5G equipment deal with Bharti Airtel to enhance network coverage using Open RAN-ready solutions.
Nokia is actively replacing Huawei in key European deployments—securing a major Open RAN contract to supply Deutsche Telekom across 3,000 German sites. In the U.S., Nokia signed a multi-year deal with AT&T to provide cloud-based voice core and 5G network automation solutions powered by AI/ML. Nokia is gaining ground in Europe and the U.S. through modernization and automation contracts. Samsung is leveraging Open RAN partnerships for a comeback, and overall vendor competition is shaped by technology shifts toward cloud-native, AI-enabled, and multi-vendor architectures.
Samsung is stepping up in the Open RAN ecosystem — as illustrated by a successful joint demonstration between Samsung, Vodafone, and AMD showcasing a full Open RAN voice call using AMD processors and Samsung’s O-RAN vRAN software. Despite its RAN equipment revenues falling 25% in 2024, Samsung remains well positioned in Europe and Africa, particularly in Vodafone tenders for replacing Huawei, which may drive recovery through expanded vRAN/Open RAN adoption.
In summary, the global RAN market is stabilizing after a steep downturn in 2024. Huawei holds steady in core markets like China and parts of Europe, while Ericsson leads globally on portfolio strength and new deals — particularly Open RAN and enterprise solutions.
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References:
RAN Market Grows Outside of China, According to Dell’Oro Group
https://telecomlead.com/telecom-equipment/huawei-achieves-growth-in-global-ran-market-amid-industry-stabilization-122275
https://www.ericsson.com/en/ran/omdia-2025
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Dec 2025 Update by Stefan Pongratz:
RAN market stability is expected in 2026. After two steep years of declines that erased roughly $8–9 B of RAN revenue between 2021 and 2024, preliminary findings indicate that market conditions continued to stabilize in the third quarter. This supports the flat-growth thesis we have been communicating for some time and reflects both the maturation of the 5G network and the limited RAN upside beyond traditional consumer-driven Mobile Broadband (MBB), including FWA, private wireless, and premium MBB.
Reflecting on the year and the expectations outlined for 2025, it appears that the high-level message that RAN conditions are improving is mostly correct, though with some regional caveats. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) is performing better than initially expected, in part due to currency exchange rate fluctuations. At the same time, 5G activity in India is coming in below expectations, partly due to coverage delays with the smaller carriers.
The results are mixed across the emerging RAN segments. Private wireless growth is in line with expectations. Preliminary findings from the recently updated Private Wireless report suggest that the positive momentum driving the roughly 40% increase in 2024 extended into 1H25, with worldwide private wireless RAN revenue accelerating rapidly in the first half. And even though Open RAN is stabilizing, growth is still landing at the low end of the 5% to 10% target for the year, in line with market conditions in the U.S. and Japan and the pace of adoption in Europe.
Looking ahead to 2026, we expect more of the same with stable overall investments dominated by regional MBB variations. At the same time, growth prospects will remain favorable with select RAN segments, including 5G, AI RAN, Open RAN, Cloud RAN, and Private Wireless.
In summary, the RAN market is adjusting to a post–5G peak-rollout environment characterized by slower data traffic growth and few catalysts likely to alter the flat-growth outlook. Global RAN projections remain essentially unchanged, with the market expected to hold steady in 2026. Beneath the flat topline, however, several segments—including private wireless, 5G, Open RAN, Cloud RAN, AI RAN, and small cells—are still poised for growth. In other words, while overall revenue growth will be muted, 2026 should nevertheless be an eventful year.
https://www.delloro.com/2026-predictions-ran-market/