Global LTE 4G infrastructure revenue is expected to reach $19.8 billion in 2015 and will decline in 2017 from its peak next year, said Infonetics Research.
LTE 4G infrastructure revenue forecast by Infonetics Research reflects two important statistics shared by GSA and 4G Americas.
4G Americas earlier said 350 commercial LTE networks are expected by end of 2014. LTE 4G connections will surpass 2.3 billion by 2020.
Earlier, GSA said the total number of LTE subscriptions is rapidly approaching the 300 million milestone. There were 245.4 million LTE subscriptions by March 31, 2014.
Infonetics said LTE 4G infrastructure revenue in Q2 2014 was driven by Asia Pacific – especially China.
Asia Pacific telecom market generated to roughly $3 billion, or 54 percent, of total LTE 4G infrastructure revenue, making the region the largest LTE revenue generator by far.
China Mobile, the largest telecom operator in the world, has started investing in TD-LTE Capex plans and finished the second quarter of 2014 with 410,000 eNodeBs.
“China Unicom and China Telecom also deployed LTE at a more measured pace,” said Stephane Teral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research.
LTE accounted for half of overall mobile infrastructure revenue at $5.6 billion, registering a growth of 8 percent over Q1 2014, said Infonetics Research.
Recently, Dell’Oro Group said the global telecom equipment sales will increase $30 billion by 2018 — at a CAGR of 2 percent between 2013 and 2018. The growth driver will be wireline infrastructure. Wireless and wireline telecom infrastructure markets are expected to grow at a CAGR of 1 percent and 3 percent, respectively between 2013 and 2018.
Infonetics Research said the global macrocell 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market rose 11 percent to $11.2 billion in Q2 2014.
China was the main growth driver. China’s LTE roll outs created a huge eNodeB spike, capacity upgrades in the US, and sustained activity in Europe, India, and the Middle East have also contributed to the growth in macrocell 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market.
Infonetics Research said evolved-UTRAN (E-UTRAN) posted strong double-digit growth, while evolved packet core (EPC) took a deep dive.
Mcrocell 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market will reach $43.6 billion this year against $43 billion in 2013.
GSA says as many as 66 telecom operators in 35 countries are investing in VoLTE studies, trials or deployments, including 10 operators in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the USA who have commercially launched HD voice service using VoLTE.
In addition, 69 operators are deploying LTE-Advanced technologies, 15 operators have launched carrier aggregation, including 4 operators whose networks support 300 Mbps Category 6 user devices.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
