Private 5G firm Celona has cut a chunk of its global workforce – possibly about 20 percent, mainly in sales – as it adjusts to slower industrial deployments and macroeconomic uncertainty. The California firm is refocusing on existing enterprise customers and channel partnerships while moderating growth expectations to 30–40%.
In sum – what to know:
Industries – Celona cites overexpansion and delayed industrial 5G deployments amid global trade uncertainty.
Channels – Sales teams in the US and Europe most affected, as the firm pivots to partners for new business.
Roadmap – Innovation plans remain “100% on track,” with new AI and connectivity launches due in 2026.
Private 5G specialist Celona has reduced its global headcount by about 20 percent as it seeks to “rebalance” after an extended period of rapid expansion. The cuts have mostly impacted its sales teams in the US and Europe, but have also hit its R&D and administrative departments. The California firm is adjusting to slower customer deployments as a consequence of macroeconomic uncertainty in key industrial markets, it said. It is putting focus on its large customer accounts, and on indirect channels in new industries and geographies.
The company has something-less than 100 staff, following the layoffs, RCR Wireless understands. Rajeev Shah, chief executive at Celona, refused to comment on the numbers, but was candid about the rationale. The decision followed a period of “hypergrowth” through the end of 2024, he said, which saw the company triple its sales force on the back of a couple of years of 100-percent revenue growth. The leadership was readying for a “hockey-stick” phase of expansion, he said, only for the market to slow through 2025 on the back of shifting global trade policies.
Shah explained: “Two things happened. Number one: the market was growing and we were winning business, but the uncertainty unsettled a lot of industries, which were waiting on the fallout to decide where to invest – which sites in which countries. All of that slowed down new deployments. Number two: some markets just didn’t take off, even though we’d invested in sales. Europe especially has been slow, even Germany, which has been a surprise. But it has been the same for everyone; the ecosystem just hasn’t moved.”
At the same time, Celona has seen new interest from parallel industries, outside its core manufacturing and energy sectors. “New industries, new customers, new applications,” said Shah. “Our pipeline was crazy; there was a flood of [interest from] warehouse companies, robotics companies; we were just spread too thin.” The situation was acute in the light of the pause on commissioned deployments. The business regrouped and consolidated, he said, to insulate itself against the macroeconomic climate, and certain regional industrial idiosyncrasies.
“This was always a technology that was strongly focused on a few industrial verticals, and we have to be sensitive about how the macro-economy affects those verticals. That is the big lesson. Oil prices have dramatically changed in the last six months. The tariffs on steel have dramatically changed. The auto industry is going through massive changes. We have to internalize that reality, and recognise such changes might create short-term blips. Private 5G will be a critical infrastructure layer for the next generation of industry. But that is a three-to-five year transition.”
As such, Celona has reset expectations, reining-in its growth 2025 sales target – to about 30-40 percent growth year-over-year, suggested Shah (versus closer to 100 percent in previous years). “We can grow at that kind of rate and be perfectly fine.” The proviso is that existing customers stick to their deployment schedules. But the direct sales team is putting renewed focus there, and Celona will otherwise rely on its integrator partners such as ALE and NTT Data – especially in Europe. “Spain is different to France, which is different to Germany, which is different to the UK.”
He explained: “So we need our partners.” Equally, Celona will focus on its go-to-market arrangement with STC in Saudi Arabia – “rather than try to expand into the rest of the Middle East just yet”.
The restructuring also reflects certain efficiencies created through AI tools, notably in software development. Shah explained: “We are all learning new ways of organizing teams in the age of AI, especially in software engineering. And a team that was built in 2022, as our team was, can have massive efficiency improvements. The organizational structure can look different, productivity can look different; how these teams are managed is different. But I can tell you that nothing in our roadmap changed. That is 100 percent on track, with new launches set for next year.”
The firm’s AerFlex platform, for smaller industrial sites, has been well-received; it has a “major new product launch” scheduled for next year. “Innovation-wise, our product roadmap is very healthy.” The firm has something coming next month, too – an agentic upgrade to its generative AI co-pilot product, Celona Assistant. Has T-Mobile’s provisional withdrawal of support for neutral-host networks in CBRS informed its strategy? “Not at all. Yes, we took out some assumptions on new revenue. But it has not impacted the team that was working on that product.”
Indeed, the neutral-host product / team is a “greater part of the strategy going forward”, apparently. Shah said: “The idea of seamless private- and public-network connectivity is more in our strategy now than it was before T-Mobile made that decision. The right long-term strategy is to align with the high level goals of the MNOs while not sacrificing the enterprise worlds… I’m genuinely excited the work we were doing for neutral-host CBRS lends itself to where the world is going. So on the product side, it is a bigger part of our innovation. So that team is practically untouched.”
More to come, maybe.
He added: “You have to adjust to what the market throws at you. This time last year, we were just getting so much demand that we needed the capacity to react. But the world changed on us in many ways – more than just in private 5G, candidly. It’s about how you react. But the company is great, the customers are good; unfortunately, some very talented individuals have been impacted. And my message to the rest of the market is that, if you see them out there, open to work, then hire them – because if the world may have changed again, then I will want to hire them back.”
