The GSMA Global Mobile Awards, the industry’s honours list, announced its 2022 results on 2 March. Two categories in mobile technology — Best Mobile Network Infrastructure and Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough — are the heavyweight prizes for network infrastructure, and Strategy Analytics has tracked winners across 2012 to 2022. The pattern is telling.
The incumbents still win
Across 22 awards in 11 years, traditional equipment vendors — Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung Networks — took 15. In the infrastructure prize specifically, Huawei and Ericsson have won 7 of the 8 awards since 2015, Huawei taking 5. Huawei is the most awarded company overall with 7 wins, well ahead of Ericsson on 3.
That dominance reflects a market whose concentration keeps rising — which is exactly why operators have started looking at open, virtualised architectures and the younger companies building them.
The challengers’ entries
The awards track that too. Since 2017, emerging technology companies built on open interfaces and virtualisation have won 4 times. Samsung Networks, a traditional vendor, won this year’s technology breakthrough prize with a fully virtualised solution.
Open RAN deserves particular attention. Industrialised only since 2018, it won in both 2020 and 2021, and although it missed the two main prizes in 2022, the best network software breakthrough went to AccelerComm’s 5G physical layer IP for Open RAN, and the digital technology prize for small companies went to Rakuten Mobile’s 5G Open RAN. Industry attention keeps rising, and the technology and industry trend behind it is worth watching closely.
Republished for information. The original text has not been independently verified and does not necessarily reflect our views.
Want to talk through what you just read?
We work end to end, from product design to launch. Tell us about your scenario and we can start there.
Shenzhen XZS Technology Co., Ltd. · Tel 0755-82494862 · 13760424861