According to a newly published forecast report by Dell’Oro Group, industry headwinds are expected to decrease mobile core network (MCN) market growth. Worldwide MCN five-year growth is now forecasted at a 2 percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR), compared to the January 2022 forecast of 3 percent CAGR.

“The July 2022 forecast is more conservative than the January 2022 forecast due to industry headwinds, including supply chain challenges, higher inflation, an impending recession, mobile network operators’ (MNO) challenges to increase revenues and regional political conflicts,” said Dave Bolan, research director at Dell’Oro Group “As a result, we reduced the 2022 to 2026 cumulative revenue forecast by 6 percent, decreasing revenues by $3.2 B. The July 2022 cumulative revenue forecast (2022-2026) is now $50.3 B resulting in a 2 percent CAGR.”

“We are tracking the number of 5G Standalone (5G SA) MBB networks that have been launched commercially by MNOs. In the first half of 2022, only three new 5G SA networks were launched, KDDI in Japan, DISH Wireless in the US, and China Broadnet in China bringing the total deployed around the world to 27 MNO 5G SA MBB networks,” Bolan added.

Additional highlights from the MCN Five-Year July 2022 Forecast report:

• Year-over-year (Y/Y) MCN revenue growth rates for each year in the forecast are positive but will decrease each year; by 2026, Y/Y revenues will be essentially flat
• MCN market CAGR forecast by industry segments we expect 5G MCN to be 21 percent, 4G MCN – 20 percent, IMS Core 2 percent and the user plane function required for multi-access edge computing 67 percent
• The North America and China regions are expected to have the lowest CAGRs, while Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific without China regions are expected to have the highest CAGRs.