5-Year Open RAN forecast revised downward, Dell’Oro

According to a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, security, networks, and data center industries, the Open RAN movement has come a long way in just a few years, already comprising a mid-single digit share of the broader RAN market (single vendor and multi-vendor Open RAN). Following three years of Open RAN revenues accelerating at a significantly faster pace than expected and multiple upward forecast adjustments, this is the first downward forecast revision since the firm started tracking Open RAN, reflecting some hesitancy about these next generation architectures. What is complicating the analysis is the fact that Open RAN adoption has been mixed across the greenfield and the brownfield operators. With greenfield and early adopter brownfield deployments maturing, the reality the industry is now facing is that it will take some time for the other segments to match and offset the more stable trends with the early adopters.

“We can think of this revision more as a near-term calibration than a change in the long-term growth trajectory,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President and Analyst at the Dell’Oro Group. “This journey of “re-shaping” the RAN was never expected to be smooth and many challenges remain. Even so, our long-term position has not changed. We continue to believe that Open RAN is here to stay, and the growing support by the incumbent suppliers bolsters this thesis, “continued Pongratz.

Additional highlights from the July 2023 Open RAN Report:

• Cumulative Open RAN revenues have been revised downward by 5 percent to 10 percent through the forecast period.
• Open RAN revenues are projected to account for more than 15 percent of global RAN by 2027.
• The European operators are ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to announcing Open RAN targets, but they have been more cautious with deploying Open RAN, focusing on building out 5G using traditional RAN. The baseline forecast, which assumes more delays in Europe, is for the European Open RAN market to surpass $1 B by 2027 and eventually be one of the leading markets from an Open RAN/RAN perspective.

Dell’Oro