Celona has three major global markets but expects to add more top markets in six to nine months
The reason for private 5G is still often wrapped in cutting the total cost of ownership, the CEO said
CEO Shah told Fierce there was no chance of further cuts at the company
Celona CEO Rajeev Shah told Fierce Networks the week before Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona that the startup has "stabilized ourselves quite well" after the layoffs that happened in October last year.
The CEO said there was no chance of further cuts happening this year. "All the markets we did decide to stick around in and invest in are showing us the exact return that we were expecting and better," Shah said.
Celona's next steps
"I think the U.S., Europe and Saudi [Arabia] are the three big focus markets for us," he said. He expects that Canada, because of new spectrum regulation, as well as Mexico and Latin America, where Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is reselling Celona, will follow along the same lines as the big three markets in the next six to nine months.
"I would say Northern Europe in general," Shah continued. "I think the Netherlands has been a bit of a hot spot...certainly, in the U.K., the demand is finally starting to pick up...it has been better than we expected in Belgium."
Much of this has been because spectrum regulation has become "clearer" in Europe. Which is why Germany, which has had spectrum allocated for industrial usage for some time, is a bit of a surprise.
"I would say we are not seeing the same pace from Germany as we would have expected," Shah said.
In the U.S., Shah thinks that the current geopolitical environment means there is significant investment across manufacturing, transportation, logistics and data centers. "That is driving a lot of wireless demand," Shah said.
Celona zeroes in
The ability to deploy 5G private networks across multiple countries is crucial for some of Celona's 100-plus enterprise customers. As SNS Telecom & IT told Fierce, some of Celona's recent customers include Celanese, Cargill, Roularta, BP, LyondellBasell, Cotton Holdings, Dot Foods and Honda Mobilityland, said SNS 5G research director, Asad Khan.
Shah said that Cargill, a multinational food company, has around 65 private network sites deployed so far, most in the U.S. and some in Europe. According to Celona, Cargill experienced a 50% reduction in total cost of ownership moving to private 5G. This is because of needing to deploy fewer radios, less cabling and having less operational overhead, Shah said.
Cargill is also preparing for the future with private 5G, Shah noted. This will include robotics and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). He noted that we are still in the "early days" of AI-enabled robotics and expects more to follow.
Read all of our coverage from Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona here.