5G MCN Up 20% After Decline Previous Quarter

According to the Dell’Oro Group, the 3Q 2024 Mobile Core Network (MCN) market was up 12 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) in Q3 2024 despite being down 15 percent year-over-year the prior quarter, and after that quarter's decline, the 5G MCN market was up 20 percent year-over-year.

“With quarterly results widely fluctuating at this point, it is more insightful to examine the trends on a rolling 4-quarter basis. On that basis, the MCN market growth rate was down 4 percent Y/Y, and the 5G MCN market was up 5 percent Y/Y, based on rolling 4-quarter averages,” said Dave Bolan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group.

“The negative growth rate for the total market suggests that the economic headwinds remain in place, and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) continue restraining their capex. We are still holding to our growth rate forecast, estimating the MCN market revenues for 2024 will finish below 2023 and 2025 will be negligibly higher than 2024.”

Bolan added that a slowdown of 5G SA deployments makes for a tougher vendor market.

“As of this report, 63 MNOs have commercially deployed 5G Standalone (5G SA) eMBB networks in 35 countries. Eight new 5G SA networks have been added in 2024 to date. The 2024 5G SA network deployment count contrasts with 13 deployed in 2023 and 21 in 2022,” he said.

“The slowing deployment of 5G SA networks reduces the market opportunity for vendors to grow their revenues. It was just a year ago when the 5G MCN growth rate was 29 percent Y/Y for the rolling 4-quarter average versus 5 percent for 3Q 2024.”