Open RAN on track to comprise 15 percent of RAN by 2026, according to Dell’Oro Group

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – According to a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries, preliminary findings suggest total Open RAN revenues, including O-RAN and OpenRAN radio and baseband, surprised on the upside both in 2020 and during 2021, bolstering the thesis that Open RAN is here to stay and the architecture will play an important role before 6G.

“The Open RAN movement has come a long way in just a few years, surprising both proponents and skeptics,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President and analyst with the Dell’Oro Group. “While challenging comparisons will weigh a bit on the market over the short-term, it is unlikely that these divergences between the greenfields and the brownfields will leave lasting imprints on the long-term prospects,” continued Pongratz.

Additional highlights from the Dell’Oro Group Open RAN Advanced Research Report:

• Open RAN revenues are expected to account for around 15 percent of the overall 2G-5G RAN market by 2026, reflecting healthy traction in multiple regions with both basic and advanced radios.
• The Asia Pacific region is dominating the Open RAN market in this initial phase and is expected to play a leading role throughout the forecast period, accounting for more than 40 percent of total 2021-2026 revenues.
• Risks around the Open RAN projections remain broadly balanced, though it is worth noting that risks to the downside have increased slightly since the last forecast update.
• The shift towards Virtualized RAN (vRAN) is progressing at a slightly slower pace than Open RAN. Still, total vRAN projections remain mostly unchanged, with vRAN on track to account for 5 percent to 10 percent of the RAN market by 2026.