The newest data from Gartner shows that Apple’s share of worldwide smartphone sales grew from 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008 to 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Research In Motion saw its BlackBerry market share rise from 13.3 percent in first quarter of 2008 to 19.9 percent in 2009, with unit sales growing from 4.3 million to 7.2 million over the same period. Smartphone sales represented 13.5 per cent of all mobile device sales in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.
Research group Pyramid expects LTE to grow more rapidly than preceding mobile standards in terms of subscriptions. “While it took nearly six years for UMTS/HSPA to reach 100 million subscriptions, Pyramid predicts that LTE will take just over four years to reach the same milestone,” explains Locke. “The number of LTE subscriptions worldwide will grow at a CAGR of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014 and reach 136 million by year-end 2014,” he says.
The new report by Pyramid Research says it’s a pace faster than any previous mobile standard including 3G.
For the first time, most of the major players, operators, and vendors alike, are behind the same mobile standard, notes Daniel Locke, analyst at Pyramid Research and author of the report. “By using LTE’s more efficient and cost-effective flat IP architecture, mobile operators can transfer the savings to end users in the form of lower prices for access, faster data rates, and higher traffic allowances for a wider adoption of mobile data services,” he says. “To date, 27 mobile operators worldwide have publicly committed to deploying LTE, with 12 of them expected to roll out commercial services in 2010 and the remainder during 2011 and 2012,” he adds.
“The majority of LTE subscriptions in the early stage will come in developed markets, where most of the first LTE deployments will occur,” says the report.
Other analyists predict that because W-CDMA to HSPA to HSPA+ is the natural evolution path for GSM operators, the number of HSPA and HSPA+ customers worldwide will increase from 61 million at the end of 2008 to 1.1 billion at the end of 2015.
Maravedis does not expect the first LTE networks to go live until 2010 or 2011. Although vendors already claim commercial development and software upgrades from GSM, compatibility certifications will take their normal 18-24 month course to initial mass market availability. Moreover, outside of NTT DoCoMo, China Telecom and Verizon, most mobile operators indicate a continued shift to HSPA and EVDO reV3 and a possible further upgrade to HSUPA, before transition to LTE. This puts the timing for widespread adoption of LTE into 2012 to 2014.
Meanwhile, a new analysis by Juniper Research indicates the global opportunity for WiMAX 802.16e forecasts that up to 12% of the global DSL installed base will be substituted by WiMAX by 2013. The Far East will lead with over one fifth of the 47m subscribers in 2013.
Highlights from the report include:
- The annual fixed WiMAX global market size will exceed 13m subscribers by 2013
- The WiMAX device market – comprising CPE, chipsets, minicards, and USB dongles – will approach $6bn pa by 2013
- The top 3 regions (Far East, N. America and W. Europe) will represent over 60% of the $20bn p.a. global WiMAX service revenues by 2013
South Korea launched the world’s first commercial Mobile WiMAX service in June 2006. Samsung is currently doing business with 23 major operators in 19 countries, including Clearwire in the US, UQ Communications in Japan and Yota in Russia.
Sweden and Norway were among the first to auction 4G licenses last spring. TeliaSonera won 2.6 GHz licenses in paired bands. That spectrum is being identified all over the world for 4G. In the United States, Sprint and Clearwire have already acquired the bulk of that spectrum.
It’s still too early to predict are the impacts of groundbreaking efforts including the availability of Google’s G2 WiMAX phone; Comcast’s femtocell marketing, which will begin in the second half of the year; an orchestrated VNO push in enterprise and vertical markets; and the availability of the first “full mobile” devices by the fourth quarter. These ingredients may spice up the so-far lackluster performance of Clearwire’s WiMAX rollouts, says Robert Syputa.
