Over 40,000 Private Cellular
Networks Active by 2030
31st July 2025, London, UK: New research from connectivity specialists Kaleido Intelligence expects over 40,000 private networks to be active in 2030, with over 60% of deployments in North America and Europe. This represents a growth of nearly 500% from 2025’s anticipated deployments.
Maturing Market with Business Model Shifts to Come
The new report, Private LTE And 5G Networks Outlook 2025, notes that much of this expansion will come as the market becomes more accessible to smaller businesses with large areas to cover, where the economics of private cellular make them a good alternative to Wi-Fi. This is because the basic benefits of consistent coverage and secure private connections are still top of mind for many enterprises. This will reduce the average spend per network by almost 40% by 2030.
Alongside this, to offset the outlay for a private cellular network, network-as-a-service and other Opex-based business models will increase, bringing the annual Opex spend on private networks to over $2 billion by the end of the forecast period. However, Capex will still dominate, accounting for over 70% of the total private network spend.
Private 5G as Future-Proofing
Kaleido’s report notes that the majority of current deployments are not necessarily taking full advantage of 5G, with only 35% of deployed networks expected to use the technology by the end of 2025. However, this will have more than flipped by 2030, with only 22% of networks using LTE. Manufacturing, with its need for automation and other highly QoS-dependent use cases will be the biggest vertical for private 5G, with 89% of its networks using the technology by the end of the forecast period.
“Investment in private 5G networks is about future-proofing and making responsive networks,” remarked research author James Moar. “While the benefits of private networks are often achievable with LTE, 5G architecture allows for network flexibility and customisation that can make the networks more secure, reliable and expansive compared to private LTE.”
Interest from Reinvented MNOs
Traditional network operators missed the boat on the first wave of private network deployments, being outpaced by more agile integrators and network equipment vendors. However, several MNOs are reinventing themselves to be able to compete in the market. Kaleido notes that MNOs’ own spectrum gives them a strong advantage for verticals which require large-scale coverage, such as for power grids, first responder networks and rail infrastructure. Kaleido anticipates the energy and utilities sector alone to generate a spend of $2.8 billion by 2030, which MNOs are among the best positioned to capitalise on.
About Kaleido Intelligence
Kaleido Intelligence is a specialist consulting and market research firm with a proven track record of delivering telecom research at the highest level. Kaleido Intelligence is the leading research company addressing mobile roaming and connectivity services in its entirety, covering industry-leading market insights, data forecasts, historical viewpoints, competitive intelligence and operator market surveys.
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