Dell’Oro says that China aside, revenues from mobile core network kit rose between 9% and 17% in other regions, with North America blazing the trail
Dell’Oro Group’s new research on the mobile core network market highlights a sharp divergence in different countries. They rose 14% year-on-year outside China, driven by accelerating 5G Standalone deployments, momentum behind network slicing, and early 5G-Advanced launches.
Research Director Dave Bolan reckons 3Q25 marks a pivotal turning point as operators begin shifting from rollout to monetisation. Mobile network operators {MNOs) investing in SA migrations, enterprise services and new 5G-Advanced capabilities are reshaping mobile core strategies worldwide: so far 12 mobile operators are moving forward with 5G-Advanced.
“The Chinese market experienced abnormally high growth in 3Q 2024. Consequently, its spending on mobile core declined 39% year on year for 3Q 2025,” stated Bolan. “The revenue for all the other regions increased, between 9% and 17% Y/Y, resulting in a worldwide revenue decline of 2% Y/Y [with China factored in].
“As noted, revenue worldwide excluding China rose 14% Y/Y, continuing the trend in subscribers migrating to 5G Standalone (5G SA), and revenue worldwide excluding North America declined 5% Y/Y.”
Bolan continued, “MNOs are moving forward with 5G SA (72 in our last count) and moving forward to take advantage of monetization opportunities. Network slicing announcements continued. Of note is Reliance Jio (India), which announced 10 network slices with guaranteed service level agreements (SLAs) at scale. In October, T-Mobile launched Edge Control, providing enterprises with what Dell’Oro Group refers to as ‘an MNO-provided Mobile Private Network (MPN)’. This is in response to the challenges of implementing 5G SA Private Wireless networks in the shared CBRS spectrum in the US.
“We have identified 12 MNOs that have commercially launched 5G-Advanced networks (not all this quarter), to take 5G to the next level with new features and performance. MNOs include: China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, CTM (Macau), Du (UAE), e& (UAE), HKT (Hong Kong), Singtel (Singapore), Telstra (Australia), T-Mobile (USA), YTL (Malaysia), and Zain (Kuwait),” added Bolan.
