Dell’Oro says Ericsson and Nokia will overtake Samsung, the big 4G RAN winner
Samsung may have taken the lion’s share of the Indian Radio Access Network (RAN) market in the 4G era, but Nokia and Ericsson are anticipated to gain share and lead as the nation transitions to 5G. That’s one takeaway from a recent update on the Indian RAN market from Dell’Oro Group. The update from Dell’Oro attributes this gain by Nokia and Ericsson to preliminary contracts awarded by Indian telcos Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.
Dell’Oro pegs wireless carrier revenue in India at around $24 billion for 2021, about 2-2.5% of global wireless revenues. Meanwhile, India accounts for about 1.15 billion wireless subscribers, or about 14% of the global market, Dell’Oro claims, based on information provided in Ericsson’s Mobility Report. Another benchmark Dell’Oro sourced from the Ericsson report: All told, Indian mobile users moved about 12 to 13 exabytes (EB) last year, accounting for about 19% of global traffic. As a reminder, an exabyte is 1,000 petabytes (PB) or 1 billion gigabytes (GB).
“Based on a bottom up RAN revenue analysis, we estimate India accounted for a mid-single digit share of global RAN revenues in 2021,” said Dell’Oro. The group indicates that Indian telcos saw an average revenue per user (ARPU) of less than $2 per month, far below the global average of $10 per month. This helps to explain the gap between RAN revenues and base station transceiver (BTS) volumes, it said.
“As a result, base station pricing is extremely competitive,” said Dell’Oro.
The Indian government concluded a spectrum auction in August that raised $19 billion. Reliance Jio was the big spender, securing $11 billion worth of spectrum in the process. AirTel snagged $5.4 billion worth, and Vodafone spent another $2.4 billion. Almost as soon as the auction was over, the Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the country’s telecom minister requested that carriers gear up for an imminent launch of 5G services. Indian carriers followed suit, announcing pilot 5G launches in September and October.
“5G rollouts are expected to be intense, especially over the next 18 months. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are targeting nationwide 5G by the end of 2023 and early 2024, respectively,” said Dell’Oro. “And per the RAN forecast, we are modeling India’s RAN share to rise in 2H22 and throughout the forecast period.”
News emerged earlier this week that Reliance Jio Infocomm had selected Nokia and Ericsson to deliver equipment to enable the company’s burgeoning 5G network. Jio will offer 5G through a mix of wireless spectrum across the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands.
Earlier this month, Reliance Jio Infocomm announced the launch of the beta trial of its 5G services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi. “The Beta trial service for other cities will be announced progressively as cities keep getting ready. Users will continue to avail of this Beta trial until the network coverage of a city is substantially complete to provide the best coverage and user experience to every customer,” the carrier said in a release.
Dell’Oro sees India as responsible for “mid-single digit share of global RAN” revenues in 2021, with Indian wireless capex pegged at around $5 billion, or 3% of global wireless capex spend.
