Worldwide telecom company capital expenditures (capex) climbed 9% last year and likely will grow by another 3% this year, according to a new report from Dell’Oro Group. However, communications technology vendors shouldn’t get too comfortable, because capex growth is expected to “taper off” in 2023 and 2024 the market research firm states in its new Telecom Capex Report.
The report tracks capex for both wireline and wireless infrastructure. Dell’Oro expects this year’s small increase to be relatively broad-based, with investments growing in China and the U.S. “Telco investments, in general, have shown remarkable resilience to external factors including COVID-19 containment measures, supply chain disruptions, and economic uncertainties,” said Stefan Pongratz, vice president and analyst with the Dell’Oro Group. “Surging wireless investments in the U.S. taken together with non-mobile capex expansions in China will keep the momentum going in 2022.”
However, Pongratz expects what Dell’Oro termed “challenging comparisons” in the U.S. to turn overall global capex southward in the latter years of the forecast. Meanwhile, capex growth prospects across Europe in 2022 will be more muted than what was seen in 2021.
Capex growth will be strongly linked to manufacturer revenues, with Dell’Oro expecting vendors selling into the telecom space seeing revenue increases of 4% this year.
Dell’Oro’s Telecom Capex Report covers the spending of more than 50 telecom operators to highlight carrier revenue, capital expenditure, and capital intensity trends. The report provides actual and three-year forecast details by carrier, by region/country (United States, Canada, China, India, Japan, and South Korea), and by technology (wireless/wireline).
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