Huawei’s 8 percent year-to-year organic revenue growth led among telecom vendors, as RAN market stifled industry-wide performance.
The chart — prepared by TBR — shows the Q2 2016 revenue growth and operating margin of ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, HPE, Huawei Technologies, IBM, Accenture, Juniper Networks and Cisco Systems.
A slowing RAN market drives telecom vendors to restructure and focus their portfolios around software, services and cloud enablement to help operators evolve into digital service providers.
According to TBR’s Q2 2016 Telecom Vendor Benchmark, vendors recognize telecom Capex (capital expenditure) will be subdued until the 5G cycle ramps up in 2020, technology suppliers will increase their focus on adjacent markets, such as the cable industry, where Capex investment is growing.
“Telecom solution providers are waiting for the 5G spend cycle to accelerate and are pursuing other growth avenues in the meantime,” said TBR’s Telecom Analyst Patrick Filkins in a press statement.
Providers target other customer segments for expansion, particularly cable, where DOCSIS 3.1, CCAP and fiber investment are growing. Leading benchmarked vendors such as Huawei, Nokia and Cisco, along with optical suppliers, are best positioned to capitalize on these trends.
Vendor revenue in all regions was negatively affected by slowing LTE Capex, but the negative impact was partially offset by increased spending on fixed access and optical equipment and in the IT domain.
Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployments in China and higher investment in wireline solutions in the United States signal service providers are investing to support forthcoming 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) services.
