The number of LTE mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide will hit 250 million in the first quarter of 2014 and exceed the milestone of two billion by 2019, according to global analyst firm Ovum.
Ovum forecasts that this figure will account for 25 per cent of mobile broadband subscriptions. By that time one in three people will use an LTE device. The future growth will essentially be fuelled by more affordable devices and more network deployments enabled by further spectrum availability.
Ovum’s latest update to the World Cellular Data Metrics, which tracks mobile data usage and take-up including subscribers, deployments, revenues, mobile broadband usage, and SMS/MMS/data traffic, showed that the United States is the world’s largest LTE market, with the two leading US operators, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, accounting for 35% of global LTE subscriptions.
Senior analyst, Ovum, Thecla Mbongue, said: “Verizon ended 1Q14 with 47.9 million LTE subscriptions and AT&T ended with 38.4 million. There are seven operators worldwide with more than 10 million total LTE subscriptions; the majority of these operators are either US or Japanese operators. Korea was the most penetrated LTE market in 1Q14, with a rate of 47per cent of the countries population.”
He continued: “The increased availability and affordability of LTE-capable devices is a major growth driver. However, deployments and usage are still at an early stage globally, except for North America, where LTE represented over one-third of mobile broadband usage in 1Q14. In emerging markets, where prepaid is dominant and handset subsidies less frequent, LTE take-up is slow as coverage is limited and operators prioritise the high-end and business segments”, said Mbongue.
LTE is well established in North America, and there have been no significant launches in 2014. However, operators are still expanding their network coverage.
As at March 2014, Verizon covered 93per cent of the US population and AT&T covered 87per cent. Sprint and T-Mobile are behind these two leaders with coverage, but both are aggressively building out their LTE networks.
As at June 2014, Sprint covered 70 per cent of the US population while T-Mobile covered 71 per cent in July 2014.
Europe has seen 10 LTE launches this year, with the most recent launches being UK Broadband in the UK and Bakcell in Azerbaijan.
In total there are 96 LTE networks in service in Europe, and there are many planned launches on the horizon too, especially in Eastern Europe and CIS countries.
The UK leads both Western Europe and all of Europe in LTE subscriptions with over 6 million, while Russia leads Eastern Europe with more than 2 million.
Senior Research Analyst, Kristin Paulin said: “As at mid-2014, there were 34 LTE deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, split across 16 markets. The region saw its mobile broadband market pass the one billion subscriptions mark in early 2014. LTE was the fastest-growing technology, with subscriptions increasing by 102 per cent year on year and passed the 100 million mark in mid-2014.
LTE represented just over 9 per cent of total mobile broadband subscriptions. Japan, Korea and Australia are the second, third and fourth largest markets in the world respectively and the three combined accounted for 32 per cent of the global LTE subscriptions in 1Q14” .
The Middle East saw an increase of LTE subscriptions by 174 per cent year on year to three million in 2Q14. There have been 17 deployments across LTE subscriptions in the Middle East.
Vodafone Qatar is the latest operator to launch LTE in the region with a network going live in June 2014. Infrastructure supplier Huawei led the market in terms of number of contracts – 14 by mid-2014, followed by Ericsson and NSN each supplying seven operators.
[Source-Internet]
