Mobile infrastructure market has recorded solid first quarter declining at a low-single digit pace enabled by robust transceiver base station (BTS) and RF carrier shipment growth.
Combined small cell and macro base station shipments increased approximately 40 percent in unit terms in Q1 2018.
“The depth of the technology roadmap, coupled with the increased use of video following the onset of unlimited data plans, is stimulating operators to add RF carriers and capacity on both the macro and small cell layers,” Stefan Pongratz, senior director with research firm Dell’Oro Group, said.
Technology vendor ranking positions remained unchanged in the first quarter – in rank order.
Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia accounted for more than 80 percent of the overall RAN market.
While China-based Huawei remains the number 1 telecom infrastructure vendor both from a shipment and revenue perspective, the gap between Huawei and Ericsson continued to narrow in the quarter, reflecting to some degree the state of network investments in the U.S. and China.
The gap between Huawei and Ericsson from revenue perspective has narrowed by nearly 3 share points from Q1 2016 to Q1 2018.
The telecom research report said Ericsson’s lead over Nokia in the North American RAN market has widened in Q1 2018.
