Gartner: Global 5G infrastructure market size will double to $8.1 billion in 2020

According to Gartner's latest forecast, the global 5G network infrastructure market size will almost double to US$8.1 billion in 2020.

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Gartner expects total wireless infrastructure revenue to fall 4.4% to $38.1 billion in 2020. In 2019, communications service providers' investments in 5G network infrastructure accounted for 10.4% of total wireless infrastructure revenue, and this figure will reach 21.3% in 2020 (see Table 1).

Table 1: Global wireless infrastructure spending forecast, 2019-2020 (US$ million)

Source: (July 2020)

"Investment in wireless infrastructure continues to gain momentum as more telecom operators invest in 5G projects by repurposing existing assets, including radio spectrum bandwidth, base stations, core networks and transport networks, and shift LTE/4G spending into maintenance mode," said Kosei Takiishi, senior research director at Gartner. "Early adopters of 5G are driving greater competition among communications service providers. In addition, governments and regulators are driving the development of mobile networks and promoting them as a catalyst and multiplier for broad economic growth across many industries," he added.

Increasing competition among communications service providers has accelerated the pace of 5G deployment. The new open radio access network (O-RAN) and virtualized radio access network (vRAN) ecosystems can break the current supplier market and promote the promotion of 5G by providing cost-effective and flexible 5G products in the future. Gartner predicts that by 2023, 5G services of telecom operators in Greater China (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong), mature Asia Pacific, North America and Japan will cover 95% of the population in the region.

“Although 5G investment growth rates have declined slightly in 2020 (excluding Greater China and Japan) due to COVID-19, telecom operators in all regions are rapidly investing new and discretionary funds in building out 5G networks and 5G platforms.”

"In the short term, Greater China leads the world in 5G development, with 49.4% of global investment in 2020 coming from the region. China's cost-effective infrastructure, government support and reduced regulatory barriers have paved the way for major Chinese telecom operators to rapidly expand 5G coverage," said Kosei Takiishi. "However, other countries and regions are following closely behind."

Gartner predicts that 5G investment will rebound modestly in 2021 and will exceed LTE/4G in 2022 due to behavioral changes caused by people's high dependence on communication networks.

Telecom operators will gradually increase their non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) 5G network capabilities, and by 2023, 15% of telecom operators around the world will no longer rely on 4G network infrastructure to build 5G networks. This will cause the wireless market to quickly withdraw investment from the LTE/4G field, while spending in the traditional RAN infrastructure field will also decline rapidly.