Global Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) Market Outlook, 2031

Open RAN revenue returned to double-digit growth in 2025 following a roughly 40 percent decline between 2022 and 2024, a reversal driven by more favorable RAN spending trends in regions with strong Open RAN exposure and increased activity among early-majority adopters rather than by any improvement in supplier diversity. The gap between Open RAN ambition and operational reality remains the defining characteristic of the category, with multi-vendor RAN still expected to account for less than 5 percent of total RAN deployments by 2030 even as open fronthaul becomes a baseline capability on next-generation radio platforms. Government capital has become the most predictable demand signal, with the U.S. NTIA awarding more than 550 million dollars across 35 projects through the first two rounds of its Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund and a third round making up to 450 million dollars available for software and integration automation. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry selected Rakuten Symphony in April 2026 for a grant of up to 8 billion yen, approximately 50.2 million dollars, for Open RAN and RAN Intelligent Controller deployments across seven countries, extending public funding from domestic capability building into export-oriented deployment. Europe’s four largest mobile operators, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, and Vodafone, signed an agreement describing Open RAN as the technology of choice for future mobile networks, committing to work with the O-RAN Alliance and Telecom Infra Project toward competitive parity with traditional RAN solutions. India’s ecosystem is building from the radio unit upward, with Pegatron 5G showcasing O-RAN-compliant radio units including the high-power PR2850 at India Mobile Congress 2025 and RANsemi selected by Tidal Wave Technologies to supply Open RAN baseband technology for industrial private 5G deployments.

ABI Research ranked Mavenir, NEC, and Nokia as Open RAN leaders, with Fujitsu, Ericsson, Samsung, Rakuten Symphony, and Parallel Wireless placed in the mainstream tier, a hierarchy that reflects implementation depth and standards engagement rather than revenue scale alone. Mavenir has pivoted toward small cells and non-terrestrial networks while NEC has prioritized vRAN and Massive MIMO, strategic retreats that acknowledge the difficulty of displacing incumbents across the full RAN stack and instead concentrate resources on defensible niches. Incumbent Western suppliers are fully hedged, with Ericsson targeting 160 radio models to be Open-RAN-proven by the end of 2026 and Nokia introducing AI-RAN-ready Doksuri radios with Open fronthaul compatibility, meaning the largest RAN vendors are absorbing openness into their portfolios rather than ceding share to specialists. Vodafone’s Spring 6 procurement illustrates the consolidation dynamic, naming Ericsson as sole RAN vendor in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Portugal, Samsung as primary Open RAN and vRAN supplier within Europe, and Fujitsu’s 1Finity unit as an Open RAN radio supplier, a structure where multi-vendor means multiple large vendors rather than a broad ecosystem of new entrants. Private 5G has become the most fertile ground for new entrants, with French specialist Firecell and Belgian Open RAN vendor Accelleran merging in a transaction backed by 7.9 million euros to deliver a pre-integrated private 5G platform combining Firecell’s core with Accelleran’s programmable RAN and RAN Intelligent Controller. Entry barriers have shifted from radio hardware engineering to integration and interoperability testing, with the NTIA’s 5G Challenge finding that equipment compliant with 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance specifications could still produce interoperability events around timer configuration, message handling, bitrate compatibility, and version differences.

Market Dynamics Driver: Deterministic industrial connectivity and AI-driven network automation pulling Open RAN into production
• Automated guided vehicles, remote-controlled machinery, and industrial robotics require predictable connectivity that proprietary single-vendor networks struggle to deliver at multi-site scale, and the Firecell-Accelleran merger is explicitly positioned around sub-millisecond latency and deterministic connectivity for robotic arms and autonomous vehicles.
• AI integration is delivering measurable operational returns inside Open RAN architectures, with Rakuten reporting 15 to 20 percent reductions in energy consumption through its AI platform integrated with Open RAN systems alongside lower manual operations costs and faster deployment cycles.
• The RAN Intelligent Controller has become the functional locus for these gains, and Japan’s 8 billion yen grant to Rakuten Symphony explicitly covers RIC deployments across seven countries, signaling that governments view AI-native RAN control as a strategic capability rather than a commercial feature.

Challenge: Multi-vendor integration cost and performance parity with incumbent RAN
• The ATIS Open RAN Minimum Viable Profile Version 2 documented that differing interpretations, configurations, and optional features make interoperability difficult even among compliant equipment, and each update to an individual component can restart elements of the qualification process and add continuing cost.
• Operators and system integrators must coordinate debugging work among suppliers that may compete with one another, a governance burden that expands the integrator’s role and complicates release management as deployments scale from single sites to multi-site rollouts.
• Performance parity remains the most pressing commercial challenge, and analysts note that commercial buildout in greenfield, rural, and enterprise markets is more tractable than deploying Open RAN in a high-traffic macro network spanning millimeter-wave and sub-6 GHz spectrum where incumbent solutions have been optimized over multiple generations.

Trend: Private and sovereign deployments overtaking public macro as the Open RAN growth engine
• The most durable Open RAN demand is emerging in private and sovereign contexts where vendor diversity is a policy objective rather than a procurement preference, with Firecell and Accelleran describing their merged stack as 100 percent European-developed software deployable fully on-premises for defence and critical infrastructure data autonomy.
• Government-backed testbeds are de-risking multi-vendor integration, with Brazil’s OpenRAN@Brasil program operating an Open RAN testbed across five regions with a Near-RT RIC blueprint since November 2024 and demonstrating a 5G radio unit prototype exceeding 1.5 gigabits per second in laboratory testing.
• Sovereign AI infrastructure is creating a new deployment vector, with Aramco Digital and Intel announcing Saudi Arabia’s inaugural Open RAN development center scheduled to open in 2026, aligning Open RAN capability building with the Kingdom’s broader digital infrastructure investment.



Segment Analysis By Equipment Type
• Radio units are the most contested equipment layer because open fronthaul specifications have lowered the hardware barrier, and the supplier field now spans Fujitsu’s 44R21 sub-6 GHz radio units deployed by Rakuten Mobile, Pegatron’s PR2850 high-power O-RAN radio, and AmpliTech’s 4T8R outdoor macro radio unit certified for U.S. and Canadian markets.
• Core network selection remains the least multi-vendor layer of the Open RAN stack because operators prioritize stability and integration simplicity, illustrated by Mavenir replacing Huawei with its cloud-native converged packet core and open RAN components at Montana’s Triangle Communications while Vodafone retained Ericsson as sole core provider in the United Kingdom.
• Transport is the silent determinant of Open RAN performance because fronthaul, midhaul, and backhaul segments must deliver timing precision and low latency across disaggregated components, and the O-RAN Alliance’s Open Xhaul Transport workgroup is standardizing transport equipment, physical media, and control protocols underlying the Ethernet interfaces used across all three segments.
• Small cells have become the volume entry point for Open RAN in private and enterprise networks, with Vodafone prototyping a 5G network-in-a-box built on a Raspberry Pi to make mobile private networks accessible to Europe’s 22 million SMEs and AT&T expanding open RAN small cells from Dallas into New York with Phoenix planned.
• Support equipment including orchestration platforms, RAN Intelligent Controllers, and service management layers is where differentiation is concentrating, and AT&T’s deployment of Ericsson’s Intelligent Automation Platform as a single SMO layer supporting rApps from AT&T, Ericsson, and third parties illustrates how the management layer determines whether multi-vendor openness is operationally real.

By Frequency Band
• Sub-6 GHz spectrum carries the overwhelming majority of operational Open RAN deployments because propagation characteristics support macro and small cell coverage with economically viable radio density, and Rakuten Mobile’s 2025 expansion used Fujitsu’s 44R21 radio units on its 3.7 GHz sub-6 network while JTOWER unveiled Japan’s first Open RAN-compatible shared 5G radio system for the Sub6 band.
• mmWave Open RAN remains a targeted deployment modality for high-capacity venues and fixed wireless access rather than a broad coverage solution, with NTT DoCoMo tapping Samsung for 5G RAN equipment supporting its mid-band and mmWave spectrum holdings, and an Ericsson and O2 Telefónica proof of concept using mmWave achieving end-to-end speeds above 4 gigabits per second.

By End-use Industry
• Manufacturing is the anchor end-use for Open RAN outside public carrier networks because deterministic connectivity for automated guided vehicles and robotic arms justifies dedicated infrastructure, and Pegatron 5G has built its business around O-RAN-compliant solutions for private networks and industrial transformation since 2018.
• Utilities are investigating Open RAN for smart grid applications where low size, weight, power, and cost edge platforms must deliver cloud-native performance, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science has published analysis of Open RAN value cases for energy science deployments that underscore how open wireless standards can accelerate energy system evolution.
• Telecommunications operators constitute both the largest end-user and the primary system integrator channel for Open RAN, with Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, and Vodafone jointly committing to the technology and Telefónica stating it will transition at least half the markets it serves to open RAN.
• Ports, airports, and logistics terminals require deterministic coverage across large outdoor areas where proprietary networks are costly to scale, and private 5G deployments in these environments are increasingly structured around pre-integrated Open RAN platforms that reduce multi-site rollout complexity.
• Healthcare Open RAN deployments are concentrated in remote diagnostics and surgical training, with CPQD installing a 5G Open RAN network in Piauí, Brazil, enabling patients in the public health system to undergo imaging exams remotely, and research demonstrating Open RAN can substantially reduce deployment costs for remote eHealth applications.
• Automotive manufacturing campuses were early private 5G adopters, and Open RAN compatibility is becoming a procurement consideration as operators seek to avoid vendor lock-in across assembly halls and outdoor logistics yards where automated guided vehicles require consistent latency.
• Defense organizations are the most demanding Open RAN buyers because they require standalone operation, zero-trust architecture, and supply-chain resilience, and the European sovereign private 5G positioning around defence and critical infrastructure illustrates how national security requirements are shaping equipment selection.
• Mining operators adopt Open RAN-based private networks for remote-controlled drilling and autonomous haulage in underground and open-pit environments where public coverage is absent and vendor diversity reduces operational risk across remote sites.
• Agriculture and smart campus deployments constitute the remaining Open RAN demand, with Brazil’s OpenRAN@Brasil program selecting proposals for sustainable Open RAN for agribusiness and smart campuses across the North, Northeast, and South regions of the country.

Regional Analysis
• North American Open RAN is defined by AT&T’s five-year network upgrade with Ericsson, which has completed more than half of its radio replacement program, carried more than half of its traffic on open-capable hardware, and targets 70 percent of wireless traffic on open interfaces by the end of 2026, supported by NTIA funding exceeding 550 million dollars across 35 projects and an Accord lab testing radios from JMA Wireless, Airspan, 1Finity, and Nokia.
• Europe leads in operator commitment and sovereign capability building, with Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, and Vodafone signing a joint Open RAN agreement, Telefónica targeting at least half its markets on open RAN, O2 Telefónica deploying Ericsson Cloud RAN in a commercial 5G standalone network in Offenbach, and the UK’s Open Networks Research and Development Fund providing 250 million pounds through March 2026.
• Asia-Pacific is the most advanced Open RAN deployment region on a per-operator basis, with Rakuten Mobile operating a fully cloud-native containerized Open RAN running more than 275 sites, NTT DoCoMo launching commercial 5G Core services in a hybrid cloud environment in March 2026 with an 80 percent reduction in deployment time through agentic AI automation, and Japan’s METI funding Rakuten Symphony’s seven-country RIC deployment.
• Brazil anchors South American Open RAN through the OpenRAN@Brasil program, a Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation initiative operating an Open RAN testbed across five regions with a Near-RT RIC blueprint since November 2024, presenting a 5G radio unit prototype at Futurecom 2026, and deploying a 5G Open RAN network in Piauí for remote public health imaging exams.
• Middle East & Africa’s Open RAN trajectory is policy-led and concentrated in the Gulf, with Aramco Digital and Intel building Saudi Arabia’s first Open RAN development center scheduled to open in 2026, Nokia and Tawal demonstrating multi-tenant Open RAN with 5G AirScale Indoor Radios connected to Dell PowerEdge servers hosting virtualized CU/DU software at LEAP 2025 in Riyadh, and RANsemi partnering with ACES to advance 5G Open RAN in the Kingdom.

Considered in this report
• Historic Year: 2020
• Base year: 2025
• Estimated year: 2026
• Forecast year: 2031

Aspects covered in this report
• Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) Market with its value and forecast along with its segments
• Various drivers and challenges
• On-going trends and developments
• Top profiled companies
• Strategic recommendation

By Equipment Type
• Radio Access Network (RAN) Equipment
• Core Network Equipment
• Transport and Backhaul Equipment
• Small Cells and Antenna Systems
• Network Infrastructure Support Equipment

By Frequency Band
• Sub-6 GHz
• Millimeter Wave (mmWave)

By End-use Industry
• Manufacturing and Industrial
• Energy and Utilities
• IT and Telecommunications
• Transportation and Logistics
• Healthcare
• Automotive
• Aerospace, Defense and Public Safety
• Mining
• Other Industries