David Pringle of Mobile World Live Interviews Leighton Carroll, CEO of Galtronics at MWC25
David Pringle:
Hello and welcome to MWC 25. I’m here at Mobile World Live and joining me on the Hub we have Leighton Carroll, he’s the CEO of Galtronics. Leighton, thank you for joining us.
Leighton Carroll:
Happy to be here.
David Pringle:
So let’s talk a little bit about last year. First, it was quite a challenging year for wireless infrastructure in general. Talk us through that.
Leighton Carroll:
So, you know, it’s interesting. North America was probably worse than other parts of the world in some respects. 2024, based on most of the data I’ve seen, was literally the lowest infrastructure, capital spending in the last 10, right? I’m actually very proud of what Galtronics and our infrastructure team has done. We grew 40% last year.
David Pringle:
Wow.
Leighton Carroll:
I’m very excited about what we built, and, when you’re in a challenging capital environment where customers are being hyper selective in where they choose to spend their money, seeing some of the new technology that we’ve developed over the last several years take off and deliver real value for wireless carriers and infrastructure owners.
It’s a neat place to be.
David Pringle:
Good. So turning to this year, 2025 feels like things are stabilizing and getting a little bit better. Is that right?
Leighton Carroll:
So,based on what we’ve seen, 25 should be better than 24.
It’s not gonna be Covid years. It’s not gonna be remarkably better, but there’s solid stabilization. People continue to use their phones. New use cases unlock additional needs for wireless spectrum or uses of wireless spectrum, which means carriers continually need to invest in their network.
We’re seeing that start to play out.
And then in dense traffic situations, whether that’s in stadiums or now to the point, certain cell sectors, carriers need to add spectral efficiency, need to add capacity. And that’s a sweet spot for us.
When we take market share in a down year, we feel pretty good about 25 and where we’re going for the next few years.
David Pringle:
Okay. Let’s talk technology for a moment.
6G. I know the industry’s still halfway through 5G. They haven’t got all the stand alone networks out there, but what’s the prospects for 6G?
Leighton Carroll:
It’s, you know, it’s funny. We do this every 10 years, right? And it’s literally clockwork. 6G, there’s still a lot of unknowns, But what is starting to be become apparent is new spectrum, new technologies, introduction of AI, better spectral efficiency, network slicing, network grooming software more into the network.
And Galtronics, we’re on the antenna side. And as great as all of these new things coming is you still have to have RF spectrum, broadcast in an efficient way. And that’s our forte. So whether it’s FR3, which is 7 to 14 gigahertz, a lot of discussion about sub-600 spectrum starting to get used as a coverage layer.
Not just massive Mimo — but excessively massive Mimo — it’s probably not the right term, but really interesting, large arrays coming.
All of these are places that Galtronics will play over the next five years as we get to six G and begin to see its commercial deployment.
David Pringle:
And, and finally Leighton, so that’s where the innovation target is for you, for Galtronics, around that?
Leighton Carroll:
Well, it’s gonna be in many respects, Galtronics innovates to where our customers need us, is maybe a way to say it.
Part of the reason we’ve had this incredible growth is we’re very selective on use cases for wireless carriers, 3POs and infrastructure owners. And what we’ve seen is particularly in dense traffic environments, as there needs to be additional spectrum layers put into dense urban areas.
Our multi-beam products, believe it or not, small cells are doing very well. We have a great in-building wireless portfolio. And then obviously we’re gonna continue to invest in technology as 6G begins to unfold. Arrays, multibeams, dense traffic. We feel comfortable with our strategy. And we feel very happy with the growth we’ve already attained and look forward to more.
David Pringle:
Good stuff. So there’s a lot to come. Leighton, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you for your insights and enjoy the rest of the show.
Leighton Carroll:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
