Highlights
Covid19 and its associated measures have been a mixed bag for telcos. On one hand, telcos and NF vendors will get adversely affected by the most unprecedented global recession witnessed in close to a century; the crisis presents several opportunities for telcos. Work-from-home (WFH) will lead to a demand for quality telecommunication infrastructure at the retail customer level – something that 5G networks are best placed to offer. This is just one of the many examples in which telecom and 5G will contribute to the changing world.
Insight Research therefore forecasts that the drop in market size for VNFs and CNFs will be moderate when compared to the setback faced by the global economy at large.
CNFs will outpace VNFs comprehensively during 2020-2025. While the shock of 2020 will curb spending for about 18 months, the industry will quickly bounce back powered by the growing 5G installations. 5G can be considered to be the most potent brand ambassador for CNFs due to its bent on cloud-native technologies. Unsurprisingly, CNFs will come to occupy more than 19 percent of the overall Core and RAN market (virtualized and containerized); an unthinkable prospect a few years ago.