ABI Research forecast the global 5G network slicing market would increase from $6.1 billion in 2025 to $67.5 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of approximately 70 per cent.

The surge is fuelled by increasing adoption in both the enterprise and consumer sectors.

It expects the enterprise segment to account for 64 per cent of the total revenue by 2030, making it the largest opportunity for mobile operators.

However, in advanced economies such as North America and Europe consumer demand is expected to outpace enterprise adoption.

The fastest growth will come from so-called “carpeted verticals” such as retail, stadiums and financial services, which have simpler requirements and faster return on investment compared to mission-critical sectors like the oil and gas industry.

ABI Research senior research director Dimitris Mavrakis stated “industrial manufacturing will remain an important vertical for network slicing, albeit at a substantially slower growth rate than carpeted verticals”.

The consumer sector is predicted to account for $24.3 billion of the network slicing segment from 2025 to 2030, followed by retail ($23 billion), stadiums ($9 billion), industrial manufacturing ($7.8 billion), and financial services ($2 billion).

Currently, Asia-Pacific far and away leads the market, representing 91 per cent of global revenue in 2025, largely due to China’s aggressive standalone (SA) 5G deployments. However, Mavrakis noted the region’s share will drop to 73 per cent by 2030 as other regions catch up.

North America is expected to lag EMEA until 2029, when it is expected to take the second spot.

Among trends impacting the 5G network slicing market, the integration of SA 5G and cloud-native tools into telecommunications networks has proven more complex than anticipated.

Mobile operators, including China Mobile, T-Mobile US, and Deutsche Telekom, are starting to monetise network slicing, despite initial challenges in penetrating the business sector.

ABI Research also factors in the maturity of SA-capable smartphones, which expands the consumer addressable market.