Dell’Oro Group, a leading research agency for telecom industry, has released the latest statistics for the Indian mobile network business for 2021.

RAN leaders in India 5G business are Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung. The estimate is based on preliminary public 5G contract announcements.

Indian operators’ wireless Capex of ~$5 billion would be ~3 percent of global wireless Capex.

RAN revenue of Indian network vendors would be mid-single digit share of global RAN.

RAN leaders in the 4G business are Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE in India. Samsung was the leading supplier for Reliance 4G network. Reliance Jio has around 420 million 4G customers on its all-India network.

Based on a bottom up RAN revenue analysis, Dell’Oro Group estimates India accounted for a mid-single digit share of global RAN revenues in 2021.

Though Samsung was the largest Indian RAN vendor in the 4G era, Nokia and Ericsson will gain share and lead in the 5G transition. This estimate is based on preliminary contract awards announced by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.

5G rollouts are expected to be intense, especially over the next 18 months. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are targeting nationwide 5G by the end of 2023 and early 2024, respectively.

Total wireless operator revenue in India was about $24 billion in 2021, implying ARPU was less than $2 per month (global average is closer to $10 per month). As a result, base station pricing is extremely competitive.

India’s wireless carrier revenue of $24 billion will be around 2.0 percent to 2.5 percent of global wireless revenues.

India’s wireless subscriber base of 1.15 billion will be around 14 percent of global, according to Ericsson Mobility Report and TRAI.

India’s mobile data traffic of 12 EB to 13 EB per month will be about 19 percent of global, according to Ericsson Mobility Report.