ABI Research finds the overall Mobile Core Network equipment market shows a modest improvement for infrastructure vendors, as the demand for 4G mobile broadband is largely offset by continuing declines in legacy technologies. The research addresses the Mobile Core Network market in the “Mobile Gateways” Market Data, with Q2 2013 updates for market share and forecast.
The Mobile Core Network infrastructure market will reach $20bn in 2013 with growth coming from the demand for mobile broadband. “Q1 2012 was an alarming dip for wireless infrastructure vendors,” says Joe Hoffman, research director at ABI Research, “but we see the recovery in Q2 2013 continuing through the rest of the year.”
Market share includes all of Core Network equipment, including equipment that reaches across multiple technology generations. Juniper discontinues their EPC product line and focuses on virtualised solutions. Ericsson continues to hold the market share lead but sees some erosion. Alcatel-Lucent, with their 4G LTE portfolio, delivers a 25% market share gain, and is an indicator of the Shift Plan at work. "Finally, we see continued market share improvement at Huawei and Cisco, while most other vendors with flat-to-declining market share for Q2 over Q1."