Dell’Oro Group found RAN infrastructure equipment revenue was down in Q2, marking the first year-on-year contraction in more than two years and the third straight quarter of the figure being below its expectations.

VP Stefan Pongratz told Mobile World Live the poor showing was due to market developments in parts of the APAC region, excluding China.

“This combined with the supplier exits in Russia and the stronger US dollar was enough to reverse course”.

While the shift wasn’t a surprise, Pongratz noted it moved a bit faster toward the negative side than he initially expected.

Dell’Oro Group suggested the impact from deteriorating macro conditions, high levels of inflation and supply chain disruptions were limited during the quarter.

The top five RAN suppliers were Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung.

Ericsson led in the world excluding China with a 39 per cent share of revenue, while Huawei and ZTE topped the tables in their domestic market.

Pongratz stated the slower RAN momentum wasn’t an indicator the 5G development cycle was over, but rather maintained his view that deployments are taking longer than previous technology cycles.

Despite the quarterly RAN figures and below-expectation H1 revenue, the company predicts a fifth consecutive year of growth in 2022.