LightCounting (LC) released its 5G Core Service-based Architecture (5GC SBA) market report.

Due to COVID-19 interference, lack of 5G business cases, various technical challenges (such as standards, cloud-native factors, platform-as-a-service readiness, multi-vendor integration and reliability issues), and overly optimistic 5GC SBA deployment plans, 5GC in 2020. The launch of SBA was slower than expected. In fact, although the public 5G deployment of 5G SA has been delayed, the deployment of private 4G and 5G networks has accelerated significantly in the past 12 months.

LC chief analyst stephane Teral said: “When we conducted this study last year, the survey results showed that at least a dozen communication service providers (CSP) have completed their 5G non-independent (NSA) to independent (SA) model migration. But this did not happen! In fact, only seven CSPs implemented their plans, including China’s three major operators and T-Mobile US.”

Therefore, China alone will account for 75% of the total 5GC SBA billion dollar market in 2020, and promote Huawei and ZTE to account for 80% of global sales, even though Ericsson and Nokia have reported strong contract wins. The most common network functions during the migration to SA include Session & User Plane and NRF (Network Repository Function) and NEF (Network Exposure Function) in Resource Registry & Security (Resource Registry & Security). Network opening function), NSSF (Network Slice Selection Function), AMF (Access and Mobility Management Function), SMF (Session Management Function), UPF (User Plane Function), and UDM (Unified Data Management)/UDR (Unified Data Repository)/AUSF (Authentication Server Function) in 5G Data Management. PCF has achieved less than half of the deployment in the field of Policy & Charging.

Although the pace of deployment continues to slow in the first half of 2021, technical challenges are being resolved. In view of the number of contracts reported by Ericsson and Nokia, as well as the strong transaction activities between CSPs and super-large enterprises, the total global 5GC SBA market is expected to grow by 60% in 2021, and the compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2026 will reach 43%. The migration of CSP to 5G SA will increase significantly. Based on the depressed demand caused by the delay in 2020, the demand will further increase. Throughout the forecast period, the Asia-Pacific region will remain the largest market. Session and user plane, as well as resource registration and security are the most important areas, followed by data management, and then policy and billing.