Digital industries- the value for adopters is proven, but can the ecosystem deliver a new growth cycle?

Digital industries is a term encapsulating the relevance of networks (notably that of 5G) to digital transformation plans of enterprises. Beyond just an MWC focus, the term actually speaks to real market developments taking shape in the mobile technology space.

As 5G was specifically designed to cater to enterprise needs, network operators and the entire mobile ecosystem have been strategising their entry into that market since before the arrival of 5G around five years ago. It was connectivity-focused offerings, such as enterprise-grade 5G phones, tablets and even laptops that dominated the initial deployment era.

However, the highest anticipation has always been for the more mature use cases of the fifth generation technology that would go beyond core connectivity; mobile edge compute, 5G IoT technologies such as RedCap and eSIM, network APIs, private networks and slicing.

To tap into the enterprise opportunity, traditional mobile players such as operators and vendors have been slowly but steadily diversifying their businesses.

For mobile network operators the contribution of the enterprise business to total revenues has been growing steadily in the last few years and today sits at an average of 30% (with significant variations among different operators*).
For some of the most prominent network operators revenue derived directly from enterprises reaches 10% of total revenues (this excludes revenue from operators that need vendors’ products to service enterprises).

What about the demand side?

At GSMA Intelligence, we have been spending a significant amount of time on understanding, and reporting on, enterprise uptake of mobile technologies.

Most recently, through our Global Digital Transformation Survey, we got input from 4,200 enterprises offering their views on 5G, satellite, Wi-Fi, private networks and IoT including adoption levels, their role in digital transformation, financing plans, operational needs, supplier preferences, implementation aspects and barriers to greater adoption.

To properly contextualise these technologies we also got input on non- comms technologies such as cloud, cybersecurity, analytics and AI. One of the key insights derived is that there is significant opportunity yet to be tapped by the mobile ecosystem.

Back to MWCs

During MWC24 Barcelona we witnessed the entire mobile ecosystem actually delivering on the promise of meeting enterprise demands with 5G. Enterprises from industries like automotive, aviation, energy, media and manufacturing appeared on stages acknowledging 5G’s contributing role, and even necessity, in making existing operations more seamless and to enable new sets of applications.

This trend held for technologies that have been around since the 4G era such as private wireless as well as ones that truly emerged with 5G, such as network APIs.

Availability of solutions and equipment didn’t seem to be a bottleneck, in other words the supply was there and the ecosystem seemed to be gathering pace.

Coming into MWC25, we can be confident more sophisticated solutions will have hit the market. But can we actually deem enterprise 5G a success?

And even if it’s not a clear cut success story yet, how can we establish that a new growth cycle is ahead and there are solid revenue opportunities from enterprise adopters?

For positive answers, I’d suggest in your MWC25 conversations to look for indicators such as:

(High) annual double-digit growth in the number of private network deployments
Private wireless as a profitable business (MNOs’, vendors’ or system integrators’)
Solid recurring revenue from managed network services of private networks and slicing deployments
High traction of 5G RedCap as reflected in high growth figures of newly launched products
Excitement in the IoT device ecosystem and automotive companies (likely priority adopters) for the coming eSIM SGP.32 standard
Clarity in business models around edge compute and edge nodes’ deployments
Higher rates of adoption than last year of mission critical networks by public sector entities and national infrastructure players

A call to action

But beyond indicators, we need reliable metrics to track progress. As 5G has many years ahead of it to increase penetration in the end user enterprise environments, operators can help by reporting the traffic being generated by enterprises. Vendors and system integrators could adopt standardised terminology (instead of more lax promotion-driven language) in their official reporting that helps distinguish 5G-related products from the rest.

Sharing the composition of customer base in terms of industry verticals will certainly help uncover where opportunities and weaknesses might lie. In this way, we can truly see the market reality and help the mobile ecosystem drive faster growth in the enterprise segment.