According to a newly published forecast report by Dell’Oro Group, private wireless radio access network (RAN) revenue growth slowed slightly in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis relative to the ~40 percent increase in 2023. Still, the tapering is in line with expectations and private wireless is performing significantly better on a relative basis than both public RAN and enterprise WLAN.

“With public MBB investments slowing, the expectations with new growth opportunities such as Fixed Wireless Access and Private Wireless are rising,” said Stefan Pongratz, vice president at Dell’Oro Group. “The results in the quarter and the trends over the past year validate this message that we have communicated now for some time, namely that the enterprise is a very large and mostly untapped opportunity. The market will continue to grow faster than both public RAN and enterprise WLAN, but because of the lower starting point, it will take some time before enterprise RAN revenues are large enough to stabilize public MBB swings,” continued Pongratz.

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Additional highlights from the September 2024 Private Wireless Report:

  • Contract activity is slowing but the quality of the contracts is improving and increasingly includes larger, multi-site and even multi-country agreements
  • Regional activity is mostly stable. The three largest regions in 1H24 from a revenue perspective include China, North America and EMEA
  • Vendor rankings did not change in 1H24. The evolving scope of private wireless taken together with the fact that the $20 billion+ enterprise RAN opportunity remains largely untapped is spurring interest from a broad array of participants across the ecosystem. Still, the traditional RAN suppliers are currently well-positioned in this initial phase
  • Top Three Private Wireless RAN suppliers in 1H24 are Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson
  • Top Three Private Wireless RAN suppliers in 1H24 excluding China are Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung.

Projections are mostly unchanged. Private wireless RAN revenues are projected to grow at a 21 percent CAGR over the next five years, while public RAN revenues are set to decline at a 3 percent CAGR over the same time period.