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Market Forecast: U.S. Mobile Network Operator Wireless Equipment Forecast, 2026–2030

Jitesh Gera, Jason Leigh — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides the five-year forecast for the U.S. mobile network operator wireless equipment market and delivers insights into the drivers and inhibitors of growth.

"The U.S. mobile network operator wireless equipment market has decisively turned a corner and is expected to grow from $68.0 billion in 2025 to $77.2 billion by 2030 (2.6% CAGR) as premiumization, corporate-liable adoption, and the still-unrealized promise of on-device AI replace unit growth as the market's primary revenue engines." — Jitesh Gera, research manager, Wireless Services, IDC

Buying Someone Else's Business: The Alliance and Execution Risks Behind Cybersecurity Consultancies' Software Acquisition Rush

Philip D. Harris, CISSP, CCSK — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective discusses how AI is compressing cybersecurity consulting margins by automating the billable, repeatable work — assessments, gap analyses, control testing, and evidence collection — which has long anchored realization rates. In response, a growing number of consultancies and services firms are acquiring software to convert hourly revenue into recurring, higher-margin revenue and differentiate bids with proprietary IP rather than head count. Accenture's Dragos, runZero, and NetRise deals illustrate the scale of ambition, with smaller managed security SPs pursuing the same logic through tuck-in acquisitions.

This IDC Market Perspective argues that software ownership lies outside most consultancies' core competencies and carries underappreciated risks: fractured alliances, talent and cultural mismatches, sustaining-engineering costs, and shifted liability exposure. The risk cuts both ways: AI-native software vendors are equally expanding into services and typically hold the structural advantage in this convergence. This document profiles forward-deployed delivery, illustrated by IBM and Red Hat's Lightwell rollout. It recommends firms apply strategic discipline inward and deepen vendor collaboration rather than pursue horizontal acquisitions or convergence.

"The consultancies best positioned to survive AI's margin compression are the ones disciplined enough to apply their own advice to themselves, not the ones racing to become software companies they were never built to run," saysPhilip D. Harris, research director, Governance, Risk, and Compliance Solutions at IDC.

6G Trends and Developments: The Race to Build the AI-Native Core

Ajeet Das — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note examines how 6G is shifting from academic concept to committed capex, as coalitions of chipmakers (NVIDIA, Qualcomm), infrastructure vendors (Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei), telecom operators, and hyperscalers (Microsoft, Google, AWS) race toward pre-commercial demonstrations by 2028 and commercial rollout by 2029–2030. It profiles the four pillars that build the AI-native 6G core, tracks the 3GPP Release 21 standardization timeline and its protocol freeze checkpoints, running from March 2027 through March 2029, and reviews the NGMN Alliance's role in aligning operator requirements ahead of formal standardization. The Note also details diverging regional roadmaps across North America, East Asia, Europe, and India, and the mid-band spectrum contest ahead of WRC-27 that carries a real risk of splitting the 6G standard along geopolitical lines.

"6G's core is being architected as an AI-native platform — will the race for global standards end in seamless connectivity or a fractured digital world?" — Research Director Ajeet Das, Telecom Network Infrastructure, IDC

Apple Fiscal 3Q26: June Quarter Records; Looking Ahead, Memory Costs and Supply Constraints Could Hamper Growth

Tom Mainelli — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Apple reported fiscal 3Q26 (June quarter) revenue of $109.4 billion on July 30, 2026, up 16% YoY and a June quarter record, with revenue records in every geographic segment and double-digit growth in every region. Products revenue was $78.7 billion, up 18% YoY. iPhone set a June quarter record at $54.3 billion (22% YoY), and Mac posted its best June quarter ever at $10.4 billion (29% YoY). Services also hit a June quarter record at $30.7 billion (12% YoY).

IDC Survey: An Overview of Smartphones @ Work in the United States — Operating Systems

Ramon T. Llamas — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey provides a focused view of how U.S. organizations deploy and evaluate Android and iOS in company-purchased smartphone fleets and how these preferences are expected to evolve in the near term. The survey compares current versus expected operating system mix and examines the decision logic behind Android-majority and iOS-majority environments, including the roles of integration fit, cost discipline, and security and reliability expectations.

It also identifies the practical conditions required to increase adoption of the alternative platform, emphasizing switching economics, integration clarity, and transition readiness. The findings help technology suppliers understand why the market continues to operate as a dual-OS enterprise environment and what levers are most likely to influence account-level platform shifts over time.

Market Analysis Perspective: Worldwide Telecom Operations and Monetization, 2026

Chris Silberberg — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Analysis Perspective provides insight into the current and future state of the telecom operations and monetization market. It includes an overview of the current market landscape, a technology buyer perspective, a market outlook, and IDC’s advice for technology and services suppliers.

This year 2026 is a year of execution as telecom operators and vendors face the reality that we are far from truly autonomous networks, and deploying agentic AI at scale is easier said than done. Technological progress is being made but needs to be accompanied with organizational and process change for the industry to really scale outputs from AI.

Market Forecast: Worldwide Foldable Smartphone Forecast, 2026–2030

Ramon T. Llamas — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation presents the five-year forecast for the foldable smartphone market and delivers insights into the drivers and inhibitors of growth.

“Foldable smartphones represent a small portion of the overall smartphone market, yet they are expected to post market-beating growth in the years to come,” says Ramon T. Llamas, research director with IDC’s Mobile Phones team. “This year, we expect Apple to launch a foldable iPhone, and Huawei will have its first full year of volume shipments. These will challenge Android’s stranglehold on the market, yet all will take slow and sure steps forward in 2027 and beyond.”

IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker Taxonomy, 2026

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides a comprehensive overview of and definitions for the mobile phone market. The definitions provided in this document represent the scope of IDC's mobile phone research. This taxonomy outlines market segmentations and measurement methodologies for the mobile phone industry, including classification by technology, vendor, geography, and revenue metrics.

"IDC's mobile phone taxonomy presents a standardized and detailed framework of the mobile phone market," says Ryan Reith, program vice president for IDC's Mobile Phone, Personal Computing Device, Wearable, and Augmented/Virtual Reality Trackers. "The taxonomy document serves as a guideline for users to better understand and use IDC mobile phone research," he adds.

Wireless Logic Acquires SIMETRY: Expanding US Managed IoT Connectivity

John Gole — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Wireless Logic's acquisition of SIMETRY tackles a real enterprise pain point: fragmented industrial IoT. Buyers juggling multiple carriers, device types, and security policies pay for it in delays and cost overruns. SIMETRY's answer is orchestration. It bundles pre-configured hardware, multi-carrier management, and over-the-air migration into a single offer built for rugged industrial sites. Wireless Logic is keeping SIMETRY's brand and leadership intact — a move that deepens its US presence today and hands it a repeatable playbook for complex, multi-operator deployments everywhere else.

European 5G Mission Critical: Models, Technologies, Adoption, and Trends

Alejandro Cadenas — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective examines the current state of the European 5G Mission Critical (MC) market across public safety and other verticals like FRMCS, focusing on the commercial models, technologies, adoption patterns, and trends visible in 2026. It draws on public disclosures from national programs, vendor announcements, and industry consortia, mapping the four business models in active use, the country-by-country technology and delivery status, and the wider set of players competing for the commercial value layer above pure connectivity. The document highlights the heterogeneity of mobile network operator (MNO) engagement across European MC programs and offers recommendations for MNOs, MC-focused vendors, integrators, and MVNOs on how to position for the 2026–2030 investment window.

"European Mission Critical is a growing commercial market where the winners have not yet been chosen. The countries where operators have invested seriously, like Spain with Telefónica, Germany with Deutsche Telekom BOS, and the United Kingdom with EE/BT, already show that the productizer role can be defensible for a decade or more," says Alejandro Cadenas, associate vice president, Global Telecom Research at IDC. "The question every other European operator now faces is straightforward: Engage in the next 24 months and shape the value layer or accept that systems integrators, specialist vendors, cloud hyperscalers, and satellite operators will define it without you."