Dell’Oro Group reports Mobile Core Network market up 14 percent outside China in 3Q 2025

The Mobile Core Network (MCN) market revenue outside China increased 14 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, reflecting ongoing adoption of 5G Standalone (SA) (5G SA) and early commercial deployments of 5G-Advanced by multiple Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).

Market Overview

Globally, the MCN market revenue declined 2 percent year-over-year in 3Q 2025, mainly due to a 39 percent revenue decrease in China after abnormally high growth in 3Q 2024. Revenue in other regions grew between 9 percent and 17 percent year-over-year, with a 5 percent decline observed worldwide excluding North America.

Key Findings

Seventy-two MNOs have adopted 5G SA, with twelve MNOs commercially launching 5G-Advanced networks. The operators include China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Continuous Threat Monitoring (CTM) (Macau), Distributed Unit (DU) (UAE), e& (UAE), HKT (Hong Kong), Singtel (Singapore), Telstra (Australia), T-Mobile (USA), YTL (Malaysia), and Zain (Kuwait). Initiatives such as Reliance Jio's deployment of ten network slices with guaranteed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and T-Mobile's launch of Edge Control were highlighted.

Segment or Supplier Performance

Regional revenue rankings placed EMEA first, followed by Asia Pacific excluding China, then China and North America tied, with CALA last. Vendor market shares above 5 percent included Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, and ZTE.

Forecast or Analyst Outlook

Continued migration by subscribers to 5G SA and enhancement of mobile network services through network slicing and Mobile Private Network offerings indicate progressing monetization pathways for MNOs.

This Analyst Signals brief reflects a neutral, fact-based summary of the original research note.