Telecom Lead India: Out of 110 networks in Asia Pacific,
10 operators (9 percent) have started commercial 4G LTE business.
Another 58 (53 percent) either have specific plans to
roll out LTE or are conducting trials, according to ABI Research.
63 percent of Asia’s telecom operators have rolled out
LTE 4G, are conducting trials, or have announced plans.
We estimate total Asia-Pacific mobile capital
expenditure to reach US$53.3 billion by the end of 2012,” said Jake Saunders,
vice president of forecasting, ABI Research.
Operators have earmarked 62 percent of their investment
for radio access network deployment. Other key investment areas include EPC and
gateway upgrades to the core network at 9 percent, as well as improving
in-building wireless coverage into dense urban centers at 5.7 percent.
In China, 4G licenses have yet to be issued. In Q2 2012,
China Mobile completed a six city TD-LTE trial. The 655 million subscriber
operator plans to ramp up its TD-LTE base station count to over 20,000 TD-LTE
base stations by December and 200,000 by 2013.
China Unicom is focusing on accelerating its 3G network
build-out, optimizing 2G network coverage, and expediting indoor coverage.
China Telecom is focused on implementing telecom cloud
and value-added services projects.
Heavy RAN investment has been taking place in India. On
April 10, Bharti Airtel became the first operator to launch 4G LTE services in
India, in Kolkata. Bharti Airtel hopes to launch 4G services in Bangalore
before June 2012. Idea Cellular, has continued to roll out 2,270 2G cell sites
and 1,176 3G cell sites in the past year.
Southeast Asia has seen a strong commitment to 4G, with
commercial networks up and running in Malaysia (likely WIMAX over LTE),
Singapore, and the Philippines.
Asia Pacific to account for over 68 percent of LTE revenue by
2015
Recently, Mind Commerce said LTE revenues have reached
over $ 2.1 billion in 2011, up from $ 0.6 billion in 2010.
Developed markets, such as North America, Japan and
several Tier 1 operators in Western Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific are
the major drivers behind LTE growth.
Global 2G/3G/4G cellular network infrastructure revenues
are set to reach over $ 51 billion by 2015 up from $46 billion in 2010 at a
CAGR of 5 percent, with LTE accounting for more than 20 percent of the revenue
share.
More than 80 percent of the revenue will potentially
accrue to major vendors such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens
Networks and Huawei.
The 4G LTE market in particular will reach over $13
billion by 2015, growing at CAGR of over 45 percent.
editor@telecomlead.com
