Open RAN Adoption Accelerates at Faster Pace than Expected

5G network telecom

The Open RAN train is continuing to advance and accelerate at a faster rate than anticipated, according to a recent report from Dell’Oro Group, a well-known source for market information about the telecommunications, security, networks, and data center industries.

The regional factors that shaped the Open RAN market in the first half of 2022, according to preliminary findings, continued into the third quarter, causing Open RAN revenues to more than double on an annual basis.

“While commercial Open RAN revenues continue to surprise on the upside, the underlying message that we have communicated now for some time now has not changed and remains mixed,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President with the Dell’Oro Group. “Early adopters are embracing the movement towards more openness but at the same time, there is more uncertainty when it comes to the early majority operator and the implications for the broader RAN supplier landscape now with non-multi vendor deployments driving a significant portion of the year-to-date Open RAN market.”

Samsung, Fujitsu, NEC, Mavenir

Additional Open RAN highlights from Dell’Oro Group’s 3Q 2022 RAN report include the following:

  • For the 1Q22–3Q22 period, the top 4 Open RAN revenue suppliers were Samsung, Fujitsu, NEC, and Mavenir.
  • Trials are increasing internationally, but throughout the 1Q22–3Q22 period, North America and the Asia Pacific regions, which together accounted for more than 95% of the market, continued to dominate the commercial revenue mix.
  • The North American area has been responsible for more than 80% of the increase so far this year, with help from significant non-Massive MIMO and Massive MIMO macro deployments.
  • The concentration of the broader RAN (proprietary and Open RAN) market has so far only been moderately impacted by the growth of Open RAN. The figures in the paper indicate that between 2021 and 1Q22-3Q22, the combined RAN share of the top 5 RAN suppliers -Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung – declined by less than 1%.
  • To reflect the higher baseline, short-term predictions have been updated upward; Open RAN is now anticipated to represent 6 to 10% of the RAN market in 2023. However, it is anticipated that growth rates for Open RAN would slow down the next year, indicating the possibility that the total of new brownfield installations will be able to balance out more difficult comparisons with early adopters.