The global macrocell mobile backhaul equipment market rose seven per cent year on year to reach over $8bn in 2012, according to research firm Infonetics Research.

According to the firm, Ericsson is the mobile backhaul microwave equipment market leader. Meanwhile China’s Huawei and French-headquarteredAlcatel-Lucent are neck and neck, jointly leading the ethernet access device/gateway and ethernet router revenue markets.

“While its revenue growth rate is slowing, macrocell mobile backhaul equipment remains a huge market, with annual spending up in the $8bn to $9bn range over the next years. Just a few years ago in 2009, the market was worth under $5 billion,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.

“When we add to the picture small cell backhaul equipment, which we believe will total a cumulative $5bn over five years it becomes clear that the backhaul market is massive. The key drivers are the ongoing HSPA/HSPA+ onslaught across the 3GPP world and growing LTE deployments by 3GPP2 players. If you don’t have packet backhaul, there’s no way to handle HSPA and HSPA+. Ethernet and microwave backhaul spending are fueling the whole market.”