Dell’Oro says the slump that characterised the second half of 2023 continued into this year across the six sectors it tracks
Dell’Oro says the slump that shaped the second half of 2023 extended into the first half of 2024. Preliminary findings indicate that worldwide telecom equipment revenues across the six telecom programs tracked at Dell’Oro Group declined 16% year-on-year in 2Q 2024, recording a fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit contractions.
The six segments tracked by Dell’Oro are broadband access, microwave & optical transport, mobile core network (MCN), RAN and service provider routers and switches.
The “abysmal results” are down to excess inventory, weaker demand in China, challenging 5G comparisons and greater uncertainty, according to the analyst house.
Regional output slowed in all regions and so did revenue growth across the board on a year-on-year basis, including North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, and the Caribbean and Latin America. The total telecom equipment market in China stumbled in the second quarter, declining 17%, year-on-year.
Initial readings show that activity across all six telecom sectors monitored by Dell’Oro declined in the second quarter. In addition to the mobiile programmes (RAN and mobile core networks), which are still affected by slower 5G deployments, spending on service provider routers fell by a third in 2Q24.
Supplier rankings were mostly unchanged (see graph below). The top seven in 1H24 accounted for 80% of the worldwide telecom equipment market and included Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, Cisco, Ciena, and Samsung. Huawei and ZTE combined gained nearly 3 percentage points in market share between 2023 and 1H24.
Supplier positions differ slightly when we exclude the Chinese market. Even with the ongoing efforts by the US government to curb Huawei’s rise, Huawei is still well positioned in the broader telecom equipment market, excluding China, which is up roughly two percentage points relative to 2019 levels.