Growth in macrocell mobile backhaul market is decelerating, a new report has claimed.
Infonetics’ latest macrocell mobile backhaul market report shows that market revenue will edge to €5.1 billion in 2013, an increase of just one percent from last year.
The report highlights that 94 percent of macrocell backhaul equipment spending this year will be aimed towards IP/Ethernet gear.
However, fibre, which is increasing its share of mobile backhaul installed connections, will grow to 43 percent in 2017.
Infonetics said telecom operators will spend a cumulative €31.29 billion over the next five years from 2013 to 2017 on macrocell mobile backhaul equipment.
Ethernet has been the obvious winner of the macrocell backhaul market, taking charge of the ever-growing mobile bandwidth usage.
Ethernet microwave radio is forecast by Infonetics to grow at a 36 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2012 to 2017, the highest of any equipment segment.
Ericsson is the current mobile backhaul microwave equipment market leader. Meanwhile China’s Huawei and French-headquartered Alcatel-Lucent are neck and neck, jointly leading the Ethernet access device/gateway and Ethernet router revenue markets.
Infonetics co-founder and Principal Analyst Michael Howard sees a future of slow but steady growth for macrocell mobile backhaul equipment market.
“Looking at the big picture, microwave TDM spending is declining, but the IP packet parts are gaining,” he said.
“We look for microwave revenue to dip slightly this year, while Ethernet microwave grows through 2017. IP edge routers will peak this year and then rumble along slightly downhill, with the strongest downward pull from Asia Pacific, countering the worldwide microwave momentum.”