Wireless infra revenue stabilises in 3Q12

AUSTIN, USA: Wireless infrastructure equipment revenues stabilized in the third quarter of 2012 reaching only $11.3 billion - a 1.0 per cent decrease from the second quarter of 2012 and a 10.3 per cent decrease from the same quarter one year ago, finds ABI Research.

"Nokia Siemens share of RAN grew by the largest amount of 4.2 points quarter-over-quarter to 22.4 per cent to narrowly miss Ericsson's 22.9 per cent at the #2 spot. Samsung's RAN revenues grew 1.1 points to five per cent. Both companies attribute their share gains to success with LTE deployments with Nokia Siemens LTE revenues growing 4 times sequentially," says Nick Marshall, principal analyst, mobile networks, ABI Research.

Huawei's RAN revenues fell by 15.2 per cent sequentially, although the company retains its #1 spot in the RAN market share rankings at 24.3 per cent. Alcatel-Lucent holds on to its #4 rank in RAN share with a value of 14.3 per cent - down only 0.8 points from last quarter. ZTE retains the #5 market share rank in the third quarter although seeing revenues 15 per cent drop from last year.

"There is no question that the RAN market has been squeezed in 2012, although we have seen improvements in the 3Q, being eight per cent down from the 14 per cent decrease we saw in 1Q," says Aditya Kaul, practice director, mobile networks. "Even with 4Q bringing in the traditional Christmas cheer, 2012 will end up 10 per cent down at the very least, which is bound to cause market share shifts especially in the top three," adds Kaul.