Dell’Oro Group lowered a revenue forecast for the mobile core network market for a third consecutive time after predicting a slowdown in subscriber growth.

The research outfit expects revenue to grow at a CAGR of 1 per cent over the next five years, which was half of what it predicted in January.

It expects declines in North America and China over the forecast period, with the rest of Asia-Pacific and EMEA tipped for the highest growth.

Research director Dave Bolan noted the latest forecast also has lower projections for the multi-access edge computing (MEC) market to a CAGR of 31 per cent because it is taking longer for enterprise applications to launch.

He told Mobile World Live the situation will begin to level out in 2027, when the MEC market will account for 12 per cent of wireless packet core sector compared with its previous expectation of 13 per cent.

Bolan said operators are concerned about inflation, possible recessions and political conflicts.

He also flagged a decline in standalone 5G enhanced mobile broadband network launches this year, declaring “only four” operators had launched commercial networks in H1 compared with six in the same period of 2022.