Telecom's Biggest Vendors 4Q24 - Vendor Market Upturn Breaks Nine-quarter Decline: Vendor Market Climbs 2.2% YoY in 4Q24 to End Nine-quarter Slide, as Broader Recovery Offsets Huawei Dip

The goal of this report series is to equip telecom industry decision-makers with a comprehensive view of spending trends and vendor market power in their industry. To do this we assess technology vendors' revenues in the telecom vertical, across a wide range of company types and technology segments. We call this market "telco network infrastructure", or "Telco NI." This study tracks 137 Telco NI vendors, providing revenue and market share estimates for the 1Q13-4Q24 period. Of these 137 vendors, 111 are actively selling to telcos; most others have been acquired by other companies in the database. For instance, ADVA is now part of Adtran, but both companies remain in the database because of historic sales.

VISUALS

Below are the key highlights of the report:

Revenues: Telco NI vendor revenues were $57.6B in 4Q24 and $206.9B for the 2024 year overall, up 2.2% and down 3.0% on a YoY basis, respectively. Huawei, which lifted the market in the first half of 2024, slipped slightly in the latest quarter while the broader market rebounded. The total market contracted 3.0% YoY in the annualized 4Q24, a modest improvement compared to a 3.7% decline excluding Huawei.

Top vendors: The top three Telco NI vendors remain the usual trio: Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia. They account for 36.7% of the total market in annualized 4Q24, or 39.9% in 4Q24 alone. China Comservice and ZTE have been jostling for the 4th and 5th positions since early 2019.

Key vendors by YoY revenue growth: The top two vendors, in terms of YoY revenue growth, are common to both single quarter and annualized 4Q24: Tejas Networks and Dixon Technologies. Their growth drivers were distinct: Tejas benefited from BSNL's large-scale 4G rollout in India, while Dixon surged from a low year-ago base. A key milestone for Dixon was its 2Q24 partnership with Nokia to jointly develop and manufacture telecom equipment, including fixed wireless access points and routers.

Spending outlook: Per our latest official forecast, we expect telco capex - the main driver of the Telco NI market - to dip from $314B in 2023 to just below $300B in 2024. Capex will struggle to see any growth over the next few years, likely ending 2028 at ~$280B. The outlook for specific country markets varies. Note that this report was prepared before Trump's early April tariff announcements. Stock markets have already plummeted, and most economists now expect a recession or worse to result from this unnecessary and counterproductive trade war. We will update our forecast outlook if warranted.

Company coverage: starting with this 4Q24 edition, we have added three additional vendors to our coverage universe. They are all based in India: Cyient, Dixon Technologies, and HFCL.

Research Coverage

List of companies: