Mobile Edge Computing Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

Mobile Edge Computing Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Mobile Edge Computing Market is expected to register a CAGR of 34% during the forecast period. The pandemic has negatively affected the market studied due to the shutdown of operations of companies globally. However, the market growth has faced setbacks due to the global lockdown caused by COVID-19. Three interrelated technologies, the internet of things (IoT), 5G, and edge computing, are expected to see a large stall in spending, affecting the market to a certain extent. Most recently, Nokia has also decided to cut up to 10,000 more jobs in 2021 and 2022 because of the financial slowdown, which may affect performance.

• Enterprises across industries are beginning to drive new levels of performance and productivity by deploying different technological innovations, like sensors and other data-producing and collecting devices, along with analysis tools. Traditionally, data management and analysis are performed in the cloud or data centers. However, the scenario seems to be changing with the increasing penetration of network-related technologies and initiatives, such as smart manufacturing, smart cities, etc.
• As enterprises embrace these new technologies, the need to analyze essential data in near real-time has become more critical to adopt the adopted technologies. The demand has become vital across many industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications, and finance. Moreover, the explosion of data, according to SharesPost, more than 150 zettabytes (150 trillion gigabytes) of data is estimated to be generated by 2025, pushing the need further. It made factors like network latency very critical.
• Furthermore, with the current 4G networks reaching their maximum limit, 5G will have to manage online traffic far more intelligently, in which mobile edge computing will play a significant role. With the management of the data load, MEC is expected to play a substantial part in reducing latency for 5G networks.
• Due to the abovementioned applications, enterprises across industries have also expressed interest in MEC, and the adoption has begun in the past few years.​ For instance, in May 2022, Zebra Technologies Corporation, an innovator at the front line of business with solutions and partners that deliver a performance edge, announced the new TC53/TC58 mobile computing series featuring innovative technologies that help business leaders and IT decision-makers across industries increase operational efficiency, deploy new capabilities to the front line, and reduce costs.
• For instance, in 2021, Nokia Technologies achieved the important milestone of 4 000 patent families declared essential for 5G standards. The company also has filed more than 1500 patent applications.

• Telecommunications is one of the fastest evolving industries in the global market. It is currently upgrading its infrastructure to prepare for the 5G transition, which makes it a suitable time for telecom end-users to invest in mobile edge computing resources.
• With the rise in an enormous amount of data generated from millions of subscribers streaming terabytes of videos, music, and social networking every day, enterprises are facing high network load, and increasing demand for network bandwidth is expected to cater to the increase in the spectrum bandwidth along with ultra-low latency rate.
• As 5G deployment is gaining traction worldwide, MEC architecture is evolving quickly to keep up with the expansion of 5G networks. Companies in the market are integrating MEC with 5G to distribute networking demands effectively.
• Tremendously improved capabilities could be handled on an exponentially increasing number of connected devices, enabling a wide range of latency and bandwidth-dependent, cross-industry technologies and applications, including artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, autonomous vehicles, connected cars.
• Many companies, including Ericsson, AT& T, Singtel, and Vodafone, are looking for big splashes in the edge computing industry. Ericsson, in May 2022, has been in a partnership with BT to provide commercial 5G private networks for the UK market, the first agreement of its kind in the country to sell next-generation mobile network technology products to businesses and organizations in sectors such as manufacturing, defense, education, retail, healthcare, transport, and logistics.

• North America is home to the three major cloud service providers, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google Cloud. This region is also the hub for all the major technological innovations such as 5G, autonomous driving, IoT, Blockchain, Gaming, and Artificial Intelligence, among others.
• This region is known to be an early adopter of new technologies. Most new technologies at present are data intensive. They create, process, and transfer large amounts of data, due to which the current infrastructure, consisting of data centers and the cloud, is inching toward its maximum capacity.
• With the number of new data generated and used at present, these infrastructures won’t be able to support the needs of their customers. Of all the parameters involved, latency will be the most crucial factor for the business. Most businesses rely on real-time data access and processing, so low latency could disrupt their whole process. This is where edge computing has helped infrastructure developers address the issue. With new technologies maturing, edge computing is expected to impact significantly.
• The United States has been the most active region with prominent telecom giants like Verizon, AT&T, Nokia, and others. Many companies have been eager to launch private 5G MEC to users and have already begun rollouts in many areas in the United States.
• January 2022 - Health technology platform Proximie has partnered with Vodafone Business to digitize operating rooms with 5G, IoT, and edge computing installations. Some industries they seem to target by working with developers include healthcare (Avesha’s polyp detection platform), entertainment/sports (real-time betting), and manufacturing.

The mobile edge computing market is moderately competitive and appears to be moderately concentrated, comprising a few significant players. Some players are expected to dominate the market in terms of market share. However, with the enhancement in the network bandwidth due to the 5G services, new players are increasing their market presence and expanding their business footprint across emerging economies. Technological advancements are bringing significant competitive advantage to companies, and the market is also witnessing multiple partnerships and mergers. Also, a threat has constantly been involving more prominent market players in other industries trying to have a new foot or grand entry into the market like Verizon, Singtel, and Vodafone.

• March 2021 -Nokia launched Nokia Edge Automation. This new solution uses a single platform to help the users remove the complexity of managing multiple cloud-based data centers by automating the process.
• February 2021- Nokia claims to have launched the first commercial ‘service enablement platform’ (SEP) for Open RAN deployments. It claims one of the movement’s key innovations was to combine the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) with ‘multi-access edge computing (MEC) and integrate them to operate smoothly on one platform. The RIC adds programmability to the RAN, which enables the addition of AI or machine learning, for instance. At the same time, MEC is the innovation that essentially opened a space for non-mobile applications at the edge.

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