Market research company Dell’Oro Group boosted its short-term open RAN sales forecast, tipping revenue from hardware, software and firmware to hit $10 billion by end-2025 as momentum behind the approach grows.

The company previously predicted sales would top $5 billion by end-2024, with cumulative shipments of macro and small sales forecast to exceed 1 million, but noted it raised its projections to account for the state of the market.

It now expects open RAN to account for 10 percent of the overall RAN market by end-2025, with “healthy traction in multiple regions” driving 2 million in cumulative kit shipments over the slightly longer forecast period.

Stefan Pongratz, Dell’Oro Group VP and analyst, explained “the overall attitude towards open RAN has clearly changed over the past six months”, adding there is “no longer a question if open RAN will happen,” but a focus “on the timing and scope” of deployments.

In the months since Dell’Oro Group released its original forecast in September 2020, separate open RAN collaboration deals were announced between Telefonica and Rakuten and O2 UK and NEC; Vodafone Group outlined plans for a large-scale deployment in the UK; and five major European players committed to rollouts across the continent.