According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries, the Mobile Infrastructure market recorded solid first quarter declining at a low-single digit pace enabled by robust transceiver base station (BTS) and RF carrier shipment growth.
Combined small cell and macro base station shipments increased approximately 40 percent in unit terms.
“The results in the quarter were encouraging and lend support to our previously communicated thesis that market conditions are set to improve in 2018,” said Stefan Pongratz, Senior Director with Dell’Oro Group. “In contrast with previous technology shifts, investments in LTE have remained fairly elevated, even after the macro coverage peak. The depth of the technology roadmap, coupled with the increased use of video following the onset of ‘unlimited’ data plans, is stimulating operators to add RF carriers and capacity on both the macro and small cell layers,” continued Pongratz.
Vendor ranking positions remained unchanged in the quarter – in rank order, Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia accounted for more than 80 percent of the overall RAN market. While Huawei remains the number 1 vendor both from a shipment and revenue perspective, the gap between Huawei and Ericsson continued to narrow in the quarter, reflecting to some degree the state of network investments in the U.S. and China.
The gap between the two vendors from a revenue perspective narrowed by approximately 3 share points from 1Q16 to 1Q18.
Additional highlights from the 1Q18 Mobile RAN Quarterly Report:
– Ericsson’s lead over Nokia in the North American RAN market widened in 1Q18.
– We increased our near-term 5G RAN market outlook by $50 M to reflect improved 5G momentum in the U.S. market.
– The report discusses the near-term RAN impact from both the ZTE ban and T-Mobile/Sprint merger.