According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, preliminary findings reveal that the Radio Access Network (RAN) market concluded the year with another difficult quarter, resulting in a global decrease of nearly $4 billion in RAN revenues for the full year of 2023. However, despite these challenges, the results for the quarter exceeded expectations, partly due to robust 5G deployments in China.

"Following the intense rise between 2017 and 2021, it's clear that the broader RAN market is now experiencing a setback, as two out of the six tracked regions are facing notable declines," said Stefan Pongratz, vice president for RAN market research at the Dell'Oro Group. "In addition to challenging conditions in North America and Europe, the narrowing gap between advanced and less advanced operators in this first 5G wave, compared to previous technology cycles, initially had a positive impact but is now constraining global 5G and broader RAN growth prospects," Pongratz continued.

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Additional highlights from the 4Q 2023 RAN report:

  • Overall concentration in the RAN market showed signs of improvement in 2021 and 2022, but this progress slowed down in 2023.
  • While full-year RAN rankings remained mostly unchanged for major suppliers, revenue shares within the RAN market showed more variability, with Huawei and ZTE enhancing their global revenue shares. Similarly, Huawei and Nokia saw improvements in their revenue shares outside of China.
  • The top 5 RAN suppliers based on worldwide revenues are Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung.
  • Regional projections are mostly unchanged, with market conditions expected to remain tough in 2024 due to difficult comparisons in India. Nevertheless, the base-case scenario anticipates a more moderate pace of decline this year.