Large OEMs Dominate the Tower Top RF Electronics Business with Nearly a 50% Share

Tower top RF electronics, consisting of active antennas, remote radio heads, and tower mounted amplifiers, are important parts of modern macro base station hardware.

These three integral sub-assemblies will account for an increasing share of the base station market as LTE rolls out and distributed base stations become the norm. The large OEMs have powerful positions in producing this hardware, either directly or through wholly owned designs made by contract manufacturing partners. The largest OEMs; Ericsson, NSN, Alcatel-Lucent, and Huawei Technologies currently account for about half of the total market. Noteworthy of mention also is Comba Telecom in the TMA segment along with Andrew and AceAxis for RRH.

Lance Wilson, research director for mobile networks at ABI Research, states: “The large OEMs have staked out a prominent position in this hardware segment and view tower top RF electronics as important parts of their macro base station portfolio.”

Smaller merchant manufacturers of these products will probably need to participate in all three segments; remote radio heads, tower mounted amplifiers, and eventually active antennas in some capacity to be successful in the future.

This market data package will be important for RF component manufacturers, base station OEMs, wireless infrastructure sub-assembly builders, and service operators.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Tower Top RF Electronics Research Service, which includes Research Reports, Market Data, Insights, and Competitive Assessments.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.