Mobile operators plans to invest over $30 bn in open RAN network

Open RAN network investments have increased steadily in recent years, driven primarily by greenfield network operators in the Asia-Pacific and North American regions. However, following this period of rapid network build-outs, greenfield operators are looking to lower capex in 2023 and 2024 and focus on network monetization. Some Tier-1 operators, notably Vodafone, have announced major plans recently to deploy open RAN, but most brownfield network operators remain very cautious about additional investments in 5G infrastructure, particularly Open RAN, due to the uncertain macroeconomic climate.

As a result, Counterpoint Research expects that the Open RAN market will stagnate during this and the next year. Investments will start to increase YoY after 2025 with network operators investing a cumulative total of more than $30 billion between 2022 and 2030. This represents a CAGR of 24% for the forecast period of 2023-2030.

Although the Asia-Pacific and North American regions will remain the largest Open RAN markets for most of the forecast period, Europe is expected to record the fastest growth with a CAGR of 108% between 2023 and 2030 as its Tier-1s finally start commercial deployments at scale, driven partly by the need to replace legacy Chinese 3G and 4G networks.

The Open RAN-compliant radio market to date has been dominated by Asian vendors Samsung, NEC and Fujitsu. However, Counterpoint Research expects that their market share will be impacted during the forecast period as other incumbents start offering Open RAN-compliant solutions.

Counterpoint Research’s recently published Open RAN Tracker is the culmination of an extensive study on the Open RAN market. The tracker provides details of all operators across different regions, covering both trial and commercially deployed networks, and market shares by region and by vendor. Counterpoint Research