Dell'Oro report: By 2026, Open RAN is expected to account for about 15% of the overall RAN market

A new report from market research firm Dell'Oro Group shows that preliminary findings indicate that overall Open RAN revenue (including O-RAN and Open RAN radio and baseband) saw surprising growth in both 2020 and 2021, supporting the argument that Open RAN is here to stay and that the architecture will play an important role ahead of 6G.

"Open RAN has come a long way in just a few years, surprising both supporters and skeptics of the technology," said Stefan Pongratz, vice president and analyst at Dell'Oro Group. "While challenging comparisons will cause some impact on the market in the short term, these differences between emerging and traditional operators are unlikely to leave a lasting mark on the long-term outlook."

Other highlights from the Open RAN report include:

• Open RAN revenues are expected to account for approximately 15% of the overall 2G-5G RAN market by 2026, reflecting healthy growth in both basic radio and advanced radio equipment across multiple regions;
• Asia Pacific dominates the Open RAN market in this initial phase and is expected to play a leading role throughout the forecast period, accounting for more than 40% of the total (Open RAN) revenue in 2021-2026;
• Risks to the Open RAN forecast are broadly balanced, but it is worth noting that downside risks to this market have increased slightly since the last update;
• The shift to virtualized RAN (vRAN) is proceeding at a slightly slower pace than Open RAN. Nevertheless, the overall forecast for vRAN remains largely unchanged, with vRAN expected to account for 5%-10% of the RAN market by 2026.