The analyst house highlights big dips in 3Q 2023, after highest growth rate ever in Q2
A report from Dell’Oro Group finds the mobile core network market (MCN) has become erratic, with the lowest growth rate since 4Q 2017. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and China had the least activity.
“It has become…obvious the MCN market has entered into a very unpredictable phase after breaking the highest growth rate in 2Q 2023 since 1Q 2021, and now hitting the lowest performing growth rate in 3Q 2023 since 4Q 2017.
“Last quarter, EMEA and China were the strongest performing regions and flipped this quarter, becoming the weakest…,” stated Dave Bolan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group.
Struggling with uncertainties
He added, “Many vendors state that the market is volatile, attributing this…to macroeconomic conditions, such as the fear of higher inflation rates, unfavorable currency…exchange rates, and the geopolitical climate.
“Besides subscriber growth, the growth engine for the MCN market is the transition to 5G Standalone (5G SA), which employs the 5G Core. But…five years into the 5G era, we are still seeing more 5G Non-Standalone (5G NSA) networks being launched than 5G SA, and the pace of 5G SA networks has slowed from 17 launched in 2022 to only seven so far in 2023.”
Bolan concluded, “We expect more 5G SA networks to be deployed in 2024 than in 2023, and we expect 2024’s market performance to be better than 2023”.
Additional highlights from the 3Q 2023 report include:
• only Telefónica O2 in Germany and Etisalat in the UAE launched new 5G SA networks in the quarter
• All seven of the 5G SA networks launched in 2023 so far are based on solutions from Ericsson
• As of 3Q 2023, 45 mobile operators have deployed 5G SA enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) networks commercially
• The top MCN vendors worldwide for 3Q were Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia and ZTE.