Continued growth in mobile broadband deployments propelled the mobile backhaul market to more than $8 billion in sales last year, according to Infonetics Research. The company cited HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE deployments as driving sales up 7% from 2011 levels.
Infonetics noted that microwave solutions accounted for the largest revenue source and is expected to account for 56% of revenues by 2017.
“While its revenue growth rate is slowing, macrocell mobile backhaul equipment remains a huge market, with annual spending up in the $8 to $9 billion range over the next years,” explained Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics. “Just a few years ago in 2009, the market was worth under $5 billion.”
Howard added that with the inclusion of small cell backhaul equipment, which Infonetics said will count $5 billion in sales over the next five years, the overall mobile backhaul market is “massive.”
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“The key drivers are the ongoing HSPA/HSPA+ onslaught across the 3GPP world and growing LTE deployments by 3GPP2 players,” Howard added. “If you don’t have packet backhaul, there’s no way to handle HSPA and HSPA+. Ethernet and microwave backhaul spending are fueling the whole market.”
As for market leaders, Infonetics noted that Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent were vying for leadership in the “Ethernet access device/gateway and Ethernet router revenue market share lead, while Ericsson remained the largest player in the microwave equipment market.
Infonetics noted in a previous report that backhaul costs accounted for as much as 30% of a wireless carrier’s total operating expenses.
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