Mobile Front Haul Market Analysis

Mobile Fronthaul Market Overview

The Mobile Fronthaul Market size is projected to grow from USD 2.032 Billion in 2024 to USD 5.883 Billion by 2032, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.21% during the forecast period (2024 - 2032). Additionally, the market size for mobile fronthaul was valued at USD 1.746 Billion in 2023.

Rising incomes in most countries that make up the Asia-Pacific region (namely India and China) and the increasing deployment of C-RAN architecture are the key market drivers enhancing market growth.

Figure 1: Mobile Fronthaul Market Size, 2022-2032 (USD Billion)

Source: Secondary Research, Primary Research, MRFR Database, and Analyst Review

Mobile Fronthaul Market Trends

The rise in the adoption of mobile computing devices is the key factor driving the market CAGR growth of the mobile fronthaul market. The smartphone market has grown rapidly since 2000 when the first smartphone, the Ericsson R380, was launched. Smartphone upgrade cycles are very short. Therefore, they have evolved into devices with phone, computer, and camera capabilities. The need for higher bandwidths like 4G is growing as the increasing capabilities of smartphones enable faster internet speeds compared to previous generation technologies like 3G and 2G. Advanced technologies such as haptics, gesture recognition, facial recognition, heart rate monitoring, and positioning system “GPS” are increasingly being implemented. Trackers and voice recognition in mobile computing devices drive demand for high-speed communication standards. These technologies use high-bandwidth frequencies provided by 3G/4G networks. Integrating advanced technologies into mobile computing devices has increased the need for networks supporting high-bandwidth applications. Therefore, the growth of mobile computing devices and the need for networks capable of supporting high-bandwidth applications will drive the growth of the mobile fronthaul market during the forecast period.

Additionally, C-RAN or cloud RAn is preferred due to several reasons. Centralizing the BBUs help in efficient service deployment at the edge, resource combination, and the capacity to handle advanced technologies with high processing power. BBU pooling offers cooperative radio sharing. In a conventional network, the BBU is far from the central office, making it difficult to manage it cost-effectively. Centralized BBU locations provide secure data centers. This enhances the data security and processing power as multiple BBUs come together in a shared pool. Extensive data analysis and computation are possible at low power consumption, providing universal access to many resources anytime and anywhere. Services are moved closer to the network edge, while telecoms gain faster responses through reduced bandwidth requirements for backhaul traffic. All these factors will spur the growth of mobile fronthaul market revenue in the forecast period.

Mobile Fronthaul Market Segment Insights

Mobile Fronthaul Type Insights

The Mobile Fronthaul market segmentation, based on type includes cloud RAN and centralized RAN. The centralized RAN segment dominated the market. Centralizing the BBUs help in efficient service deployment at the edge, resource combination, and the capacity to handle advanced technologies with high processing power. BBU pooling offers cooperative radio sharing. In a conventional network, the BBU is far from the central office, making it difficult to manage it cost-effectively. Centralized BBU locations provide secure data centers. This enhances the data security and processing power as multiple BBUs come together in a shared pool. Extensive data analysis and computation are possible at low power consumption, providing universal access to many resources anytime and anywhere. Cloud RAN increased the deployment of fiber-based technology. It will help in fronthaul architecture, multiplexing, and virtualization of 5G networks. The advent of MIMO technologies will allow higher-order multicarrier organization. The shared infrastructure will provide optimum resource allocation and faster RAN to open up the space for 5G deployments. This, in turn, will push the C-RAN mobile fronthaul market forward in the coming years.

Mobile Fronthaul Service Insights

The Mobile Fronthaul market segmentation, based on service includes professional and managed. The professional segment dominated the market. The lack of skilled experts will deter the expansion of the mobile fronthaul market. As data demand continues to rise up in mobile infrastructure, the technical problems with fronthaul technology will become more severe. There are drastic challenges related to cost, deterministic traffic scheduling, packet encapsulation, and radio synchronization. Industry task forces and working groups need to develop innovative solutions to tackle the growing issues moving forward.

Figure 2: Mobile Fronthaul Market, By Service, 2022 & 2032 (USD billion)

Source: Secondary Research, Primary Research, MRFR Database, and Analyst Review

Mobile Fronthaul Network Insights

The Mobile Fronthaul market segmentation, based on service includes passive WDM, ethernet, and active WDM. The passive WDM segment dominated the market. Due to its advantage of high channel capacity, which is mainly used in metropolitan networks, and high channel capacity in high-speed transmission lines. Whereas, Active WDM is the fastest-growing segment. Because it can greatly ease the pressure on fiber resources and fast deployment of 5G fronthaul network construction, however, the ethernet segment is widely used in the networking industry. It is used for connecting devices within a building or campus.

January 2023: Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) innovation division, Telekom Research and Development Sdn Bhd, and ZTE Corporation Sdn Bhd agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (ZTE). It desires to conduct research into optical networks. The passive optical parts are intended to bring 50Gbps broadband to Malaysia. Both businesses are anticipated to work on 50GPON, the next-generation passive optical network technology. The cooperative effort is anticipated to aid in developing technologies for high bandwidth, low jitter, and clock synchronization in 5G manufacturing, virtual cloud reality (VR), and industrial intelligence.

December 2022: Motorola Solutions, a USA-based technology company and passive optical network solutions provider, announced that they had acquired Rave Mobile Safety. It is a provider of mass notification and incident management platforms. Rave's cloud-based platform is used by state and local governments, as well as local hospitals.

Mobile Fronthaul Regional Insights

By Region, the study provides market insights into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Rest of the World. The North American mobile fronthaul market area will dominate this market, Due to the Rise in the adoption of mobile computing devices. In addition, the growing number of established health clubs and fitness facilities will boost the market growth in this Region.

Further, the major countries studied in the market report are The U.S., Canada, German, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, and Brazil.

Figure 3: MOBILE FRONTHAUL MARKET SHARE BY REGION 2022 (%)

Source: Secondary Research, Primary Research, MRFR Database, and Analyst Review

Europe's mobile fronthaul market accounts for the second-largest market share due to theincreasing deployment of C-RAN architecture. Further, the German mobile fronthaul market held the largest market share, and the UK mobile fronthaul market was the fastest growing market in the European Region.

The Asia-Pacific mobile fronthaul market is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR from 2023 to 2032. This is due torising investments in infrastructure development by governments of emerging economies.Moreover, China’s mobile fronthaul market held the largest market share, and the Indian mobile fronthaul market was the fastest growing market in the Asia-Pacific region.

Mobile Fronthaul Key Market Players & Competitive Insights

Leading market players are investing heavily in research and development to expand their product lines, which will help the mobile fronthaul market grow even more. Market participants are also undertaking various strategic activities to expand their footprint, with important market developments including new product launches, contractual agreements, mergers and acquisitions, higher investments, and collaboration with other organizations. To expand and survive in a more competitive and rising market climate, the mobile fronthaul industry must offer cost-effective items.

Manufacturing locally to minimize operational costs is one of the key business tactics manufacturers use in the mobile fronthaul industry to benefit clients and increase the market sector. In recent years, the mobile fronthaul industry has offered some of the most significant advantages to the telecommunication industry. Major players in the mobile fronthaul market, including Accelink Technologies (America),MACOM Technologies (America),Nokia (Finland),E-Blink (France),EXFO (China),HUAWEI (China), and others, are attempting to increase market demand by investing in research and development operations.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province that designs, develops, manufactures, and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, smart devices, and various rooftop solar power products. Huawei Technologies Co, Ltd. was instrumental in helping China Mobile Tianjin launch the 4.5G/5G C-RAN mobile fronthaul bearer network. Many Chinese telecom networks and companies like China Telecom Liaoning, China Mobile Qingdao, China Telecom Tianjin, China Telecom Guizhou, China Unicom Liaoning, and China Mobile Tianjin have used Huawei FO 810 technologies in their networks. This has been instrumental in helping them with two objectives: meeting their C-RAN fronthaul requirements and fully supporting their wireless coverages.

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer Electronics Corporation established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, in the greater Helsinki metropolitan area, but the company's actual roots are in the Tampere region of Pirkanmaa. Nokia Corporation formally announced using new WDM modules to expand its mobile fronthaul market share with new mobile fronthaul solutions. Network operators are expected to be the main beneficiaries of this development. One of the main things it will do is help these operators speed up the adoption and usage of RAN architecture in their daily operations. One main benefit will help the growing numbers of people who want to stream and download HD videos easily and quickly from mobile devices.

Key Companies in the mobile fronthaul market include

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  Accelink Technologies (America)

  
  


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  MACOM Technologies (America)

  
  


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  Nokia (Finland)

  
  


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  E-Blink (France)

  
  


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  EXFO (China)

  
  


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  HUAWEI (China)

  
  

Mobile Fronthaul Market Industry Developments

February 2018: HCL Technologies (HCL), an IT services company, launched a fully configurable, high-throughput backhaul modem running on Xilinx All Programmable Zynq UltraScale+ TM MPSOC devices. This solution is launched to provide 5G access to enable telecom OEMs to meet the stringent requirements of next-generation networks.

February 2017: Infinera, a technology provider company, has launched new Mobile Backhaul & Fronthaul solutions for optical transport applications to support light-term evolution advanced (LTE -A) or 4G and 5G wireless networks. The company has developed this solution to support the low latency, synchronization accuracy, configuration flexibility, and multiplexing techniques that Infinera believes mobile networks will require.

Mobile Fronthaul Market Segmentation

Mobile Fronthaul Type Outlook

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  Cloud RAN

  
  


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  Centralized RAN

  
  

Mobile Fronthaul ServiceOutlook

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  Professional

  
  


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  Managed

  
  

Mobile Fronthaul Network Outlook

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  Passive WDM

  
  


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  Ethernet

  
  


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  Active WDM

  
  

Mobile Fronthaul Regional Outlook