According to a report from Dell’Oro Group, a source for market information about the telco, security, networks and data centre industries, telco operators scaled back wireless and wireline investments in 2024. The high-level relationship between carrier revenues, capex and telecom equipment was mostly stable, as both telecom capex and telecom equipment revenues tanked in 2024.

Preliminary findings show that worldwide telecom capex, the sum of wireless and wireline/other telecom carrier investments, declined 8 per cent in 2024 (telecom equipment manufacturing revenues for the six programmes tracked at the Dell’Oro Group declined 11 per cent over the same period).

“With some of the larger fibere and 5G builds now in the past, the different risk profiles across the carrier spectrum become more pronounced,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President of RAN and Telecom Capex research at Dell’Oro Group. “While some operators prefer a more growth-oriented approach and consider elevated capital intensity levels as essential to gain a competitive edge and be better prepared for the next technology transition, the majority of the operators believe the pie is mostly fixed and focusing on efficiency improvements is considered less risky to this group.”

Additional highlights from the report:

• Investment conditions are expected to stabilise in 2025, though it will still be a challenging year from a capex and telecom equipment revenue perspective.
• The near-term investment outlook is less favourable – carrier capex is expected to decline at a 2 percent CAGR over the next 3 years.
• With carrier revenues on track to advance slightly (+1 per cent CAGR), capex/revenue is projected to approach 14 per cent in 2027, down from 16 per cent in 2024.
• Wireless capital intensity is projected to approach 12 to 13 per cent in 2027, down five to six percentage points since the 5G peak.

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Categories: Articles, Broadband, FTTH, Markets, Research, Telco

Tags: 5G, Dell’Oro Group, telco