Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, overall worldwide capex spending remained strong this year. According to the Dell'Oro Group, service providers continued to make network investments in the first half of this year and many have not made any significant changes to their guidance for the year.
While Europe and China continue to make strides, the research group's report says the reduced capex expectations for China Mobile and Vodafone will create potential risks next year.
"The correlation between growth trends in the overall mobile and fixed telecom equipment market and carrier Capex weakened somewhat in 2H14 and 1H15, however, we attribute this more to currency fluctuations than an underlying shift in how carriers are allocating their investments," said Stefan Pongratz, Carrier Economics analyst with Dell'Oro, in a release. "Exacerbated by the rising U.S. dollar, worldwide Capex fell nearly $10 B in 1H15, however, we estimate investments grew at a low-single digit rate in constant currency." Release