According to Strategy Analytics, the global military communications spending is expected to be over $35 billion by 2024. Spending on radios, communications satellites, VSAT terminals, and other systems is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4 per cent.
A few of the trends which will drive spending on the military communications sector include network-centric IP-based communications across radios, communications satellites, VSAT terminals, data links, networks and other systems. The research firm has identified North America to be the largest regional end market for the global military communications spending.
Further, in terms of systems, spending in the military communications sector will be dominated by satellite communications, comprising space-based satellite systems as well as the ground-based satellite terminals. Military communications are moving towards systems that can operate across multiple modes and bands with an increasing emphasis on IP-centric communications that support data as well as voice communications. Meanwhile, there will be continued spending on military radios.
Region-wise, Asia Pacific will drive spending on tactical radios particularly for land-based communications and account for the largest end market over the entire forecast period. Land-based radios will represent the largest market in terms of both dollar and total shipments. The total number of radio shipments is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 3.5 per cent through 2024 to reach 172,867 units.
Strategy Analytics underlines that in terms of radio frequencies, traditional high frequency, very high frequency and ultra high frequency radio frequencies will continue to be in demand, there will be an increasing emphasis towards systems that can support multi-band and/or wideband operation.
Handheld radios are expected to drive the volume in the land-based military radio market, which is expected to grow to $6.5 billion by 2024. The associated market for radio component technologies will grow from $710 million to almost $1.1 billion with gallium nitride becoming an established technology as it grows at a CAGR of 32.7 per cent. The research firm further states that the continuing demand for satellite communications will translate into continued spending on military satellite terminals. North America is expected to have the largest demand, but will be superseded by spending from the Asia-Pacific region from 2017 onwards. There will also be growth in demand from the other regions with spending in the Middle-east and Africa expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.3 per cent.
