The worldwide radio access network (RAN) market continued its slow march through 2022, though it remains dominated by market heavyweights Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia, according to a new Dell’Oro Group report.

The research firm found that RAN market growth continued to slow during the third quarter, echoing a year-long trend. Nokia was the only vendor noted by Dell’Oro to have posted an increase in RAN revenue share for the quarter.

Nokia reported robust Q3 operating results, though it did note several challenges that could impact its ability to continue on this track. Despite its growth, Nokia remains behind Huawei and Ericsson in terms of global revenue share, and behind just Ericsson in RAN revenue share outside of China.

Huawei maintained its stranglehold in China, which due to that dominance and market size, allowed the vendor to lead the overall RAN market. However, the vendor has also expressed ongoing growth concerns, with founder Zhengfei Ren stating the company will “completely give up” markets in unspecified counties to prioritize the markets and customers that have value.

Ericsson was the only vendor to put up a fight, though its most recent results also showed it was struggling for operational stability. The vendor’s network business did show strong growth in North America where carriers have aggressively rolled out 5G network upgrades, with CFO Carl Mellander stating he expects the North American RAN market to grow 12% this year, but that growth is expected to subside toward the end of this year and into 2023.

Dell’Oro Group had previously reported Ericsson generated 39% of market revenue outside of China through the first half of the year.

China’s ZTE and South Korea’s Samsung maintained their ranking positions, with the former taking advantage of deals in its home country and the latter continuing to gain share at the expense of its China-based rivals outside of that country. Samsung is also showing considerable traction in India, where it’s been included in many of that country’s most recent 4G LTE and 5G RAN deployment deals.

This geography trend has been tied to ongoing sanctions placed by western countries on components supplied to China-based vendors. Most western governments have also pressured operators to not use equipment from vendors based in China due to security concerns.

As for the broader market, Dell’Oro Group VP Stefan Pongratz revised the firm’s short-term RAN forecasts due to ongoing growth deceleration. Pongratz now expects global RAN revenues to decline at a low-single-digit rate for the year, with a surge in spending from India-based operators to fuel their 5G plans offset by dropping demand in China, Europe, and North America.

“After four years of extraordinary growth that catapulted the RAN market to record levels in 2021, the RAN market is now entering a new phase,” Pongratz wrote. “Even with 5G still increasing at a healthy pace, comparisons are more challenging and the implication for the broader RAN market is that growth is decelerating.”

Dell’Oro Group had previously stated it expects the RAN market to record a fifth consecutive year of growth.