Mavenir files for IPO

• Open RAN specialist set to trade on Nasdaq
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Mavenir, one of the leading independent vendors in the super-hot Open RAN market and a cloud native telecom applications frontrunner, has filed for an IPO following a surge in sales growth and a significant improvement in its operating margins.

The company, which has a broad range of software (and some hardware) products for Open RAN, mobile core, edge computing, private network, packet voice and data messaging deployments, filed an S-1 form with the SEC on 6 October. 

The form shows that its revenues for the full financial year to 31 January 2020 (“fiscal 2019”) were $427.2 million, up by 8.7% year-on-year, while it halved its annual operating loss to about $10 million.

But in the first six months of its current fiscal year (to the end of July), it generated revenues of $234.9 million, up 17% from the same period a year earlier, while it recorded an operating profit of $17.3 million for the period compared with a loss of $36.6 million a year earlier.

Revenues for the past 12 months amount to $462 million and, at its current growth rate, Mavenir is on course to hit the $500 million sales mark in its current fiscal year. 

The filing also shows how much business Mavenir does with a few large customers: T-Mobile US accounted for 30% of its revenues in fiscal 2019, while Rakuten accounted for 17% -- that’s almost half of its sales to just two customers. That could be seen as a precarious situation, but T-Mobile US appears to be a satisfied customer, having renewed a 10-year supply agreement in 2018 and with Mavenir seemingly confident that its revenues from the operator will only grow following T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint. 

Overall, its top 10 customers accounted for 71% of all revenues in the first six months of this fiscal year: In total, the company claims to have more than 250 mobile operator customers, including 17 of the top 20 operators.

But Mavenir is well placed to grow its business with current customers and attract new ones. Its product portfolio ticks the boxes on which network operators are currently focused as they plan and build out cloud-oriented 5G architectures: It is software-oriented, cloud native and primed to take advantage of the ongoing disaggregation of mobile network infrastructure.

The news of its planned IPO also comes just as Mavenir has received a very strong endorsement for one of its emerging product lines – Open RAN-enabled radio unit hardware. Vodafone’s Head of Network Strategy, Yago Tenorio, revealed the outcome of a Vodafone RFI this week that showed Mavenir as one of the companies best meeting the international operator’s needs for that particular Open RAN rollout element. (See Vodafone IDs Open RAN radio unit frontrunners.)

It’s worth noting too that Mavenir’s virtual RAN software is also playing a prominent role in Vodafone’s initial Open RAN steps, as it has been deployed in a live Open RAN deployment by Vodafone UK.  

It also comes only days after Mavenir revealed it is acquiring ip.access to further boost its Open RAN and enterprise/indoor wireless access portfolio. (See Mavenir buys ip.access to boost Open RAN, enterprise portfolio.)

For more on Mavenir, see these recent articles:

• How Xilinx aims to turbocharge Open RAN
• Why Open RAN is just too hot to ignore
• Mavenir supports Vodafone in live OpenRAN network for rural coverage in the UK
• Mavenir and Turkcell claim an open RAN first
• Dish selects Mavenir to deliver cloud native openRAN software for nation's first virtual 5G wireless broadband network
• DISH commits to Open RAN for US 5G rollout, enters retail mobile market

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV