5G Network Slicing Market by Infrastructure, Spectrum Band, Segment, Industry Vertical, Application and Services 2025 – 2030

Overview:

This report analyzes the key technologies and market potential of 5G network slicing. It examines market opportunities, including Configuration Management, Performance Management, and Service Level Agreements.

The report also explores specific use cases like Smart Manufacturing, covering applications such as Remote Monitoring, Supply Chain Management, Asset Management, Real-Time Monitoring, and Network Monitoring.

Furthermore, it assesses major market segments, including consumer, enterprise, and industrial IoT. The report provides global forecasts and regional estimates for 5G network slicing, broken down by segment, RF band, application, and industry verticals through 2030.

Select Report Findings:

The 5G network slicing market is projected to grow from $840 million in 2025 to $5,073.8 million by 2030. The Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is expected to be 43.3%.

The yearly growth rate is expected to accelerate, starting at 25% in 2025 and reaching 60% by 2030.

Market segment specific growth is driven by the increasingly complicated needs of broadband dependent industry solutions such as those found in automotive, industrial, and other data-intensive verticals.

Structural growth is driven by the increasing adoption of software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), and cloud-native architectures.

Network Slicing Market Dynamics:

As networks become more complex, service providers are adopting an intent-based networking approach to network management. Leading carriers are integrating network optimization techniques, like network slicing, into their OSS/BSS systems, especially crucial for the diverse use cases and requirements of 5G applications and services.

5G network slicing enables a programmable multi-service architecture with three layers: Service Instance, Network Slice Instance, and Resource. A key component is the Slice Selection Function (SSF), which handles device connections and new service setups.

5G standalone architecture, the foundation for network slicing, will provide consistent, high-performance end-to-end service, unlike 4G or Wi-Fi, particularly beneficial for applications like gaming. This enables new business models and revenue opportunities across various industries, offering service flexibility and faster delivery with enhanced security, isolation, and adherence to service level agreements (SLAs).

The SSF chooses the optimal slice based on user information, device type, and capabilities, supporting radio access network configuration rules for each slice. 5G network slicing also allows for logical separation of core networks, including the control and user planes, enabling independent resource scaling.

Carriers can leverage 5G network slicing to expand virtual network operator (VNO) capabilities, supporting diverse customer types (consumers, enterprises, and industrial businesses) with multiple logically independent networks. A consumer using enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and an industrial user with ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) applications can have completely different network slices. 5G network slicing isolates bandwidth, processing, storage, and traffic, allocating resources based on quality of service (QoS) needs.

Dynamic slicing with differentiated pricing based on customer needs and resource availability is a promising area for carriers. Slice allocation considers bandwidth availability, latency support, and network elasticity. Other factors influencing value and cost include network homogeneity, connection density, and connection type.

Service providers must consider use-case-specific requirements, categorized into three 5G service types:

eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband): Video streaming, browsing, mobile productivity, and cloud gaming.

URLLC (Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications): Augmented/Virtual Reality, telepresence, teleoperation, autonomous vehicles, drones, public safety, and smart buildings.

mMTC (Massive Machine-Type Communications): Scalable M2M networks for IoT applications, especially those not requiring high bandwidth.

A key 5G challenge is balancing the often-conflicting requirements within these categories. For example, URLLC needs high reliability, low latency, and high bandwidth. 5G network slicing allows each use case to have its own portion of the available spectrum with specific QoS/QoE configurations.

5G network slicing enables communication service providers (CSPs) to manage the diverse needs of eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC applications, considering factors like availability, bandwidth, connectivity, cost, elasticity, and latency. Each major service type can access an on-demand, cross-domain data pipe with strict QoS/QoE requirements. This is achieved by breaking down services into sub-services, mapped to features within a network slice.

Separating the control and user plane architecture allows independent scaling and optimized network function selection. This is facilitated by 5G's service-based architecture (SBA), which enables CSPs to combine communication and computing functions for better service delivery orchestration. This programmable architecture supports microservices on a per-use-case basis, providing customization, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness while managing multiple interdependencies.

Leading CSPs will leverage SDN and NFV to optimize network slice allocation and overall network management and orchestration. Network resources are deployed for easy configuration and reuse, with physical elements logically sliced into virtual networks combined with specific network functions. SDN supports soft slicing, and NFV supports hard slicing; together, they enable highly flexible slice allocations.

Carriers are moving towards fully cloud-native networks with virtualized infrastructure and programmatic services. 5G network slicing also supports OSS functions like Self-Organizing Network (SON) algorithms for automated slice instance creation, enabling on-demand slices.

Through virtualization and programmatic slicing, functions can reside on the same or different physical elements. Core networks can be logically separated, with each slice representing a custom set of deliverables. Slices can run on shared or separate infrastructure. With a radio network-agnostic core, CSPs can support various air interfaces (5G NR, LTE, WiFi).

Computational resource allocation is equally important. Mobile edge computing (MEC) optimizes 5G network resources by focusing capacity where needed. Critical for 5G, MEC reduces reliance on backhaul to centralized cloud resources, maximizing 5G NR's latency reduction benefits. Network slicing can allocate MEC resources based on specific industry, customer, and service needs.

Leading CSPs will take an end-to-end approach, leveraging disaggregation and virtualization of radio and core network elements. NFV and SDN meet QoS/QoE requirements in the core, while separating RAN elements by real-time vs. static functions is crucial in the radio network. 5G splits the RAN into centralized and distributed units, creating a virtualized RAN (vRAN).

The vRAN architecture allows CSPs to allocate static (guaranteed) or dynamic (shared) resources. This is managed by mapping a network slice ID to configuration rules in the RAN, enabling slice-specific or common control functions.