ABI Research identifies the fastest growth in ‘carpeted verticals’ such as retail, stadiums and financial services, where slicing requirements are simpler
In sum – what to know:
Network slicing will scale from $6.1B to $67.5B by 2030 – A tenfold jump fueled by 70% CAGR, SA adoption and early monetization by major operators.
Carpeted verticals drive the fastest growth – Retail, stadiums and financial services offer simpler deployments and faster ROI compared with mission-critical industrial sectors.
Asia-Pacific leads but gradually loses share – China drives 95% of regional demand today; APAC drops from 91% to 73% global share as other regions catch up.
The global network slicing market is set for explosive growth, rising from $6.1 billion in 2025 to $67.5 billion in 2030, according to ABI Research. The tenfold increase — driven by a 70% CAGR — reflects expanding commercial deployments, growing device support for 5G Standalone (SA), and early monetization efforts by operators in China, the United States and Europe.
Enterprises will generate 64% of total slicing revenue by 2030, although consumer use cases are expected to surpass enterprise demand in mature markets like North America and Europe as SA-capable smartphones become widespread. ABI Research identifies the fastest growth in “carpeted verticals” such as retail, stadiums and financial services, where slicing requirements are simpler and ROI is quicker compared to mission-critical sectors like oil and gas.
Industrial manufacturing will remain a key vertical, though at a slower pace than carpeted sectors. Asia-Pacific will lead the market through the decade with 91% of global revenue in 2025, driven almost entirely by China, which represents more than 95% of regional spending chiefly due to its aggressive SA rollout. While the region’s share will fall to 73% by 2030, Asia-Pacific will remain the dominant force as North America, Europe and the Middle East accelerate their deployments.
ABI Research’s updated outlook reflects recent operator traction — such as slicing services from China Mobile, T-Mobile US and Deutsche Telekom — alongside the technical challenges facing telcos as they integrate 5G SA and cloud-native architectures.
“In China, consumer slicing is showing traction, with multiple different options. For example, there is a consumer package based on network slicing that provides priority access and increases the uplink peak to 100Mbps. Other similar upgrades exist for social media, stadiums and mobile gaming. In the Western world, the traction varies by country, but commercial success is mostly in the US. T-Mobile US and Verizon have both launched slicing applications for specific verticals, with an initial focus on government and first responders,” Dimitris Mavrakis, senior research director at ABI Research, told RCR Wireless News.
“The upgrade to SA has been a major challenge for many operators for many reasons, including technology, business opportunity, interfacing with legacy networks. However the biggest one of these has been the lack of visibility of the commercial opportunity, which led to SA upgrades not being prioritized. This slowly changed with commoditization of cloud-native telco solutions but also the inability of NSA to keep up with 5G RAN, and the subsequent upgrade to 5G-Advanced,” he added.
