Market and Technology Trends

Radio Access Network 2026

Jan 2026

RF GaN fuels a $3B RAN market in 2025. China accelerates domestic RF capability.

YINTR26528

Key Features

2026-2031 forecast for base stations (massive MIMO and RRH), radio units, RF lines, and RF front-end components (Units, $M).
2026-2031 forecast for Sub-6 GHz small cells and mmWave radio units, RF lines, and RF Front-End components (Units, $M).
Market trends for telecom infrastructure, energy consumption, 5G monetization, 5G Advanced, and 6G.
2026-2031 wafer forecast (GaN, LDMOS, GaAs, SiGe, RFSOI…).
Overview of the telecom infrastructure supply chain, including OEMs and device makers with RAN and RF Front-End market share.

What's new

This report provide first estimation of 6G RAN deployment in the 2030 horizon.
Market model has been optimized to better reflect RF Front-End architecture and devices structures.

Report's objectives

Provide a comprehensive overview of the RAN market with market size and growth forecasts for RF devices within the Telecom Infrastructure ecosystem.

Provide volume forecasts for Macro / Micro BTS, Sub-6GHz small cells, and mmWave radio units for both public and private networks.
Provide market metrics and forecasts for RF front-end components of each system.
Provide wafer forecasts for RF front-end components.

Evaluate demand and adoption trends for telecom infrastructure with a focus on 5G mmWave penetration status.
Analyze the drivers and challenges inherent to this market.
Provide the 5G Advanced and 6G roadmaps with key evolutions and challenges.
Provide an overview of the leading players across the Radio Access Network market and RF front-end supply chain by identifying the leading companies, their market shares, product offerings, R&D investments, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic initiatives across different verticals.
Provide RAN market shares and details on RF front-end market shares.
Analyze the current and emerging technologies in RF front-end components, including filters, power amplifiers, switches, low noise amplifiers, and transceivers for the RAN market.
Evaluate the unique requirements, challenges, and opportunities in the RAN market.
Identify key technological trends for various semiconductor technologies, such as GaAs, GaN, SiGe, SOI, CMOS, SAW, and BAW, and their implications for RFFE design and development

The RF front-end market is expected to grow to $3.8 billion by 2031

Mobile data demand continues to rise, pushing operators to sustain 5G investments while preparing for 5G Advanced. By 2025, around 1.2 billion smartphones and 5.2 million radios will ship, but priorities are shifting toward network modernization and energy efficiency.

China still represents roughly half of global BTS deployments and leads early 5G-Advanced adoption, while India’s surge in 2023 slowed sooner than expected. After a dip in 2024, deployments should remain stable until a rebound driven by 5G-Advanced and early 6G upgrades. The RF market is recovering from inventory adjustments, with macro/micro BTS RFFE expected to resume growth after 2028 as higher-order massive MIMO expands.

RFFE volumes will rise from 1.1 billion units in 2025 to over 1.8 billion by 2031. Small-cell growth remains constrained by cost but is supported by private-network demand, with 8T8R/16T16R architectures adding RF-line needs. mmWave adoption stays limited, with FWA as the key use case, but will benefit from upper-mid-band features in 5G-Advanced. Wafer demand also increases steadily toward 2031, driven by expanding RFFE integration.

Chinese players chasing after NXP & SEDI Power Amplifier market share

The global RAN market remains highly concentrated, with Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung accounting for over 90% of base-station revenue. Huawei leads with about 28% in 2025, driven by strong domestic rollout, while Ericsson and Nokia regain momentum through India’s 5G expansion. ZTE remains China’s second major vendor, and Samsung continues to grow internationally thanks to early vRAN and O-RAN adoption and its internal silicon capabilities.

Open RAN and virtualization are creating openings for Tier-2 players such as NEC, Fujitsu, and Mavenir, though adoption remains limited and small cells and mmWave are the main entry points. Open-RAN is expected to thrive with generalization of NTN.

The RFFE market is consolidating around a few global leaders: NXP leads with 25% share, followed by ADI, Qorvo, SEDI and Skyworks at around 10% each. Ampleon follow, while Infineon, Renesas, MACOM and pSemi focus on niche or regional demand. Supply chain is increasingly polarized, with China accelerating domestic RFFE development through emerging GaN suppliers such as Watech directly supported by Huawei.

The US and Europe reinforce GaN and SiGe capacity through IDMs and major foundries supported by European OEM such as Nokia and Ericsson.

Industry is modernizing 5G network before moving to 5G Advanced and 6G

5G has now matured globally, with networks shifting from NSA to full SA deployment, enabling advanced capabilities such as network slicing, private networks, and edge automation. After an initial rollout focused on massive MIMO, the industry is now prioritizing efficiency through vRAN and O-RAN integration as well as network modernization.

Massive MIMO continues to define RAN evolution, with 32T32R and 64T64R dominating mid-band deployments and early 128T128R trials emerging in the upper 6–7 GHz range. Operators are also replacing legacy 4G radios with new energy-efficient RRUs to focus on OPEX optimization before the new wave of 6G investment expected around 2030.

GaN has become the preferred choice for final PAs in new AAS systems due to its efficiency, with GaN-on-SiC leading high power and GaN-on-Si expanding in cost-sensitive MIMO. Looking ahead, 5G Advanced introduces AI-driven energy management, NTN support, and FR3 spectrum use, forming the bridge to 6G, which will feature extreme MIMO, AI-native control, and operation up to 100 GHz.