LightTrends Newsletter

LightCounting releases its 2Q22 Wireless Infrastructure Market Size, Share, and Forecast

Global uncertainties, lingering supply chain constraints, market disruptions in Eastern Europe and Japan, and forex headwinds contributed to a weak 2Q22 that followed an already sluggish 1Q22. In the meantime, the wireless infrastructure market continued to operate at its equilibrium reached in 2021: the 2 opposite spheres of influence, the East led by China versus the West defined as the U.S. and its allies, are becoming more balanced.

As a result, the global wireless infrastructure market was flat sequentially and declined 7% YoY, sustained by mobile packet core network equipment including 5G Core and 4G EPC and vEPC, which were the only 3 categories that grew sequentially, mainly driven by China. Ericsson leads in 2Q22, followed by Huawei, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung.

“When Japan goes down, so does open RAN, which posted its worst quarter ever! But overall, market dynamics continued to operate at equilibrium with plenty of 5G contracts, 4G upgrades, and open RAN buildouts in the pipeline, and we maintain our view that the global wireless infrastructure market is peaking this year.” said Stéphane Téral, Chief Analyst at LightCounting Market Research.

After this year’s peak, our model points to a slow single-digit declining market. This bell-shaped pattern reflects the differences in regional and national agendas, including the COVID-19 impact as well as the impact of “the 2-year step function”—2 years (2019 and 2020) in a row of double-digit growth. The model considers all the 5G 3-year rollout plans we have gathered from many service providers and indicates strong activity through 2022 and 2023.

About the report:

Wireless Infrastructure quarterly report analyzes the wireless infrastructure market worldwide and covers 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G radio access network (RAN) and core network nodes. It presents historical data from 2016 to 2021 of quarterly market size and vendor market shares, and a detailed market forecast through 2027 for 2G/3G/4G/5G RAN, including open vRAN, and core networks (EPC, vEPC, and 5GC) for each region (North America, Europe Middle East Africa, Asia Pacific, Caribbean Latin America). The historical data accounts for the sales of more than 30 wireless infrastructure vendors, including vendors that shared confidential sales data with LightCounting. The market forecast is based on a model correlating wireless infrastructure vendor sales with 20 years of service provider network rollout pattern analysis and upgrade and expansion plans.