The global market for telecoms equipment grew last year by seven per cent, the fastest pace the market has developed at since 2011, according to a report from a top analyst firm.

Dell’Oro Group’s findings covered broadband access, microwave and optical transport, mobile core and radio access network (RAN), SP router and Carrier Ethernet switch. Vendor rankings by revenue remained stable between 2019 and 2020, with Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, Cisco, Ciena and Samsung ranked as the top seven suppliers, accounting for 80% to 85% of the total market.

“Covid-19 related supply chain disruptions that impacted some of the telco segments in the early part of the year had for the most part been alleviated towards the end of the year,” commented Stefan Pongratz, Dell’Oro VP and author of the report. “Not surprisingly, network traffic surges resulting from shifting usage patterns impacted the telecom equipment market differently, resulting in strong demand for capacity upgrades with some technologies and regions while the pandemic did not lead to significant incremental capacity in other cases.”