Omdia view
Summary
Omdia’s annual audit of global telecom wholesale innovation reveals a thriving market capitalizing on the demands of an emerging AI-first world. Agentic AI, digital sovereignty, and quality of experience are driving new opportunities in wholesale, a sector that has grown revenue by almost 30% over the past five years and is fast shedding its legacy image.
Next-generation wholesale underpins an AI-first future
Omdia’s annual Wholesale Innovation Analyzer, now in its 15th year, assesses disruptive advances in the wholesale market. For 2025, we reviewed more than 1,000 announcements from wholesalers around the world. We mapped these announcements against three growth vectors characterizing what Omdia terms next-generation wholesale:
- Agentic wholesale: Autonomous and deterministic services designed for machine-led interactions
- Experiential wholesale: Adaptive services enabling superior experiences where they matter most
- Sovereign wholesale: Compliant services and infrastructure for audited digital communication
European telcos retain a leadership role
From 2010 through 2025, European wholesale operators accounted for 77% of all innovations tracked in Omdia’s Wholesale Innovation Analyzer (Figure 1). T Wholesale (the new brand for Deutsche Telekom’s wholesale activities) and Orange Wholesale International have featured 14 and 11 times, respectively, including in 2025. BT Wholesale, Telefónica, BICS (part of Proximus Global), and Colt Technology Services also appear frequently.
Figure 1:Top 10 wholesalers by share of innovations, 2010–25
Source: Omdia
Middle Eastern wholesalers go global
In 2025, 63% of shortlisted wholesale innovations happened outside of Europe. Notably, Middle East wholesale operators asserted global ambitions and accelerated multiple expansion plans. e& Carrier & Wholesale (formerly Etisalat) increased its regional reach and added presence in the Americas and Africa. STC invested in infrastructure and partnered in areas including network APIs, IPX, and satellite.
Besides building more network and data center assets in the region, operators also looked to bolster resilience across regions. One example is the 2Africa open access submarine cable that connects Asia, Africa, and Europe and involves telcos Bayobab (MTN), Center3 (STC), China Mobile International, Orange, Telecom Egypt, WIOCC, and Vodafone. Another example is Zain Omantel International’s planned terrestrial route to Europe via Iraq, working with the Iraqi Telecommunications and Information Company and Horizon Scope Telecom.
AI is an enabler, but experience is a differentiator
The AI boom has fostered growth in bandwidth, with operators expanding subsea and terrestrial fiber systems. Many announcements cited AI as the catalyst for new PoPs, submarine capacity, data center connectivity, and even restructuring. Announcements were distributed globally and included Arelion, Lightpath, Lumen, Lyntia, Spark NZ, and Uniti, among others.
Connectivity and capacity have underpinned telco wholesale revenue for decades, but today, delivering a strong digital experience is a critical differentiator. Intuitive self-service portals, network as a service (NaaS) platforms, agentic AI tools, and APIs have raised the bar for customer interaction, as shortlisted innovations indicate:
- T Wholesale rolled out an agentic AI-based platform that provides customers greater visibility, control, and service analytics.
- Orange Wholesale International’s Core Network-as-a-Service enables smaller telcos to benefit from 5G standalone without building their own networks.
- Console Connect’s Private Label SaaS for its NaaS enables customers to take advantage of features without a steep investment.
Breaking with the past to find growth in the future
Next-generation wholesale is proving to be a dynamic growth area for telcos. Market demand for connectivity and capacity, security, and digital sovereignty plays to wholesalers’ historical strengths. But wholesalers that can combine this foundation with demonstrable service agility, deterministic performance, and frictionless transactions will increase momentum and grow revenue even faster in an increasingly human-free, autonomous market.
Appendix
Wholesale Innovation Analyzer: 2025 in Review (February 2026)
2026 Trends to Watch: Next Generation Wholesale (February 2026)
Author
Cindy Whelan, Practice Leader, Telco B2B Strategies
