According to the latest forecast of Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and consulting company, the global 5G network infrastructure market revenue will nearly double in 2020, reaching $8.1 billion.
In 2020, the total revenue of the wireless infrastructure market will decline by 4.4% to $38.1 billion. In 2019, communications service providers investment in 5G network infrastructure accounted for 10.4% of the total revenue of the wireless infrastructure market. And this investment ratio will reach 21.3% in 2020. (shown in table 1)
Kosei Takiishi, Senior Research Director of Gartner, said: “As more and more communication service providers re-use current assets (including radio spectrum bandwidth, base stations, core networks and transmission networks, and transition LTE/4G expenditures to maintenance mode), in order to prioritize 5G projects, investment in the field of wireless infrastructure continues to grow. Early 5G users are promoting greater competition among communication service providers. In addition, governments and regulatory agencies are promoting the development of mobile networks. And the mobile network will become a catalyst and multiplier for broad economic growth in many industries.”
Increasing competition among communication service providers has accelerated the speed of 5G adoption. The new O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) and vRAN (virtualized RAN) ecosystems may in the future subvert the existing vendor binding model and promote 5G by providing highly cost-effective and flexible 5G products. Gartner predicts that communication service providers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Asia-Pacific, North America, Japan and other places will achieve 5G coverage of 95% of the national population in 2023.
“Despite the impact of the new crown epidemic, the growth rate of 5G investment in 2020 will decline slightly (excluding China and Japan), but communication service providers everywhere are rapidly investing new and disposable funds in the construction of 5G network and 5G platform.” Mr. Takiishi said.
“In the short term, the China region is a world leader in 5G development, and 49.4% of global investment in 2020 will come from this region. China-made infrastructure equipment is cost-effective, coupled with national support and reduction. The regulatory barriers in China have paved the way for China’s major communications service providers to quickly achieve 5G coverage.” Mr. Takiishi said, “However, other countries that have adopted it earlier also follow.”
Gartner predicts that because the population’s high dependence on communication networks will trigger behavior changes, and communication service providers will take advantage of this change, investment in the 5G field will rebound moderately in 2021. Investment in the 5G field will exceed LTE/4G in 2022.
Communication service providers will gradually add independent functions to their non-standalone 5G networks. Gartner predicts that by 2023, 15% of global communications service providers will operate independent 5G networks that do not rely on 4G network infrastructure. This will make the investment in the wireless market quickly shift away from the LTE/4G field, while expenditures in the traditional RAN infrastructure field will also rapidly decline.
