Europe is forecast to account for 15-20 percent of the global O-RAN revenues by 2028, according to the report

North America is expected to lead the Open RAN (O-RAN) market during the 2023-2028 period, according to a recent report by Dell’Oro Group.

Dell’Oro highlighted that North America was the largest O-RAN market in 2023 and is expected to lead the broader O-RAN movement throughout the forecast period.

Meanwhile, Europe is forecast to account for 15-20% of the global O-RAN revenues by 2028, after a slow start.

“O-RAN is happening, but this vision that O-RAN will significantly change the vendor dynamics is fading,” said Stefan Pongratz, vice president of RAN market research at the Dell’Oro Group. “With most of the leading RAN suppliers now committed to the latest O-RAN fronthaul interfaces, the question now is more about the timing and the adoption curve for the various RAN segments,” said Pongratz.

The report also highlighted that the long-term position for the O-RAN market remains “favorable and mostly unchanged.” Despite ongoing challenges, most operators will gradually incorporate more openness, virtualization, intelligence and automationtheir RAN roadmaps, Dell’Oro said, adding that the pace will differ slightly between the radios and the baseband. The research firm also noted that the multi-vendor RAN business case is “less compelling.”

The report stated that the estimates for O-RAN, cloud RAN, and multi-vendor RAN are mostly unchanged from its previous estimates. By 2028, these segments are expected to account for nearly 25%, 20-25% and less than 10% of the total RAN market, respectively, according to Dell’Oro.

The forecast is more favorable outside of China, with O-RAN projected to comprise 30-40% of the revenues by 2028, the report stated.

A recent report by Dell’Oro Group stated that the global radio access network (RAN) market is forecast to decline at a compound annual rate of 2% during the 2024-2028 period as continued 5G investments will be offset by rapidly declining LTE revenues.

The report pointed out that this expected decline follows the 40-50% increase in the RAN market between 2017 and 2021.

However, Dell’Oro noted that despite the challenging scenario for the RAN market, the pace of the decline should moderate somewhat after 2024.

The Asia Pacific region is expected to lead the decline during the forecast period, while North American RAN revenues are expected to remain significantly lower than their peak in 2022.

According to Dell’Oro, 5G-Advanced technology will play an essential role in the broader 5G journey. However, 5G-Advanced is not expected to fuel another major capex cycle. Instead, operators will gradually transition their spending from 5G towards 5G-Advanced within their confined capex budgets, the research firm found.

Also, the report noted that the RAN segments that are expected to grow over the next five years include 5G New Radio, Fixed Wireless Access, millimter wave, Open RAN, vRAN, private wireless and small cells.

A previous forecast by Dell’Oro Group reported that the global mobile core network (MCN) market is expected to decline by 10% during the 2024-2028 period.

The reduction in the forecast is caused by severe economic headwinds, primarily the high inflation rates, and the slow adoption of 5G Standalone (5G SA) networks by mobile network operators (MNOs), according to Dell’Oro.