Nokia tops Omdia mobile core ranking for second consecutive year
Nokia has retained the top position for mobile core portfolio competitiveness in Omdia's "Market Landscape: Core Vendors" report for the second year running. The 2026 edition of the annual assessment placed the Finnish vendor first across all seven competitiveness categories: core portfolio breadth, cloud-native maturity, signalling, automation, core as a service, AI/ML and analytics, and implementations of other network functions.
The report, produced by analyst firm Omdia, expanded its scope this year to evaluate 12 vendors, up from the prior edition, and updated its category weightings to reflect shifting operator priorities, placing greater emphasis on AI/ML and analytics capabilities. Nokia's consistent placing at the top across a broader field strengthens the credibility of the ranking relative to last year's result.
What the ranking covers
Roberto Kompany, Principal Analyst for Mobile Infrastructure at Omdia, said Nokia "continues to distinguish itself as a technology leader in core networks" and noted that capabilities such as cloud-native maturity, automation and Core as a Service are "no longer optional innovations but strategic requirements for telecommunication providers pursuing greater operational efficiency, service agility and monetisation opportunities."
Nokia pointed to several recent deployments to support the ranking. These include what the company describes as the world's first commercial mobile telco service based on a 5G Core software-as-a-service model, a Core SaaS Edge product enabling local breakout for roaming subscribers, and core modernisation programmes targeting mission-critical sectors including rail, utilities and IoT. The company did not disclose the operator names behind these deployments or provide commercial terms.
Kal De, Senior Vice President for Core Networks at Nokia, said core networks are "becoming the intelligence layer of modern communications," connecting cloud-native operations, AI-driven automation and application innovation as operators move toward more autonomous and programmable architectures.
Market context
The mobile core market is intensely competitive. Nokia's principal rivals in this space include Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung and a cluster of cloud-native specialists such as Mavenir and Metaswitch (now part of Microsoft). Hyperscalers including AWS and Google Cloud have also moved aggressively into the telco core via network-function virtualisation partnerships, adding a further dimension of competition for traditional equipment vendors.
Operator investment in 5G standalone core has been slower than many vendors anticipated, as carriers weigh capital discipline against the revenue upside from new network-slice-based services. Omdia's decision to increase the weighting of AI/ML and analytics in its 2026 assessment reflects the industry's pivot toward network automation and intent-based operations as the near-term value driver, rather than raw throughput or coverage metrics.
Nokia's positioning across both private and public cloud deployment models gives it a degree of commercial flexibility as operators adopt hybrid architectures. The company's concurrent recognition in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CSP 5G Core Network Infrastructure Solutions, referenced in the release, suggests consistent third-party validation, though the two assessments use different methodologies and should not be conflated.
Regulatory and standards read-across
The push toward cloud-native and AI-driven core networks intersects with evolving standards from 3GPP Release 18 and Release 19, which formalise network automation and AI/ML integration at the architecture level. Operators in the EU are additionally navigating NIS2 obligations that raise the security baseline for critical network infrastructure, a factor that vendors with end-to-end core portfolios and resilience capabilities are well placed to emphasise in sales cycles.
Nokia did not disclose revenue figures, contract wins or market-share data alongside the Omdia ranking, meaning the competitive picture relies on the analyst's methodology rather than independently verifiable commercial outcomes.