Telecom Lead India: Asia Pacific to lead the 4G LTE
market by 2016.
Large gains will be in South Korea and Japan.
The Asia & Pacific region will overtake North America in
number of 4G/LTE subscribers.
Asia & Pacific will have more than 53 percent of 4G/LTE
subscribers. Globally, the total number of subscribers will be over 560 million
by 2016.
“Fifteen carriers in Asia & Pacific now have live
LTE services, with affordable pricing models that prompt robust subscriber
growth in this region. Mobile operators worldwide have committed to 4G/LTE as
the network technology of the future, but financial conditions, handset costs,
and spectrum license availability will all influence the pace and scope of
regional deployments,” said said Harry Wang, director, Digital Health and
Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates.
According to the Parks Associates research, global 4G/LTE
subscribership will increase from 9 million in 2011 to over 560 million in
2016.
In 2016, 4G/LTE subscribers will account for 8.8 percent of
worldwide mobile subscriptions.
More than 50 percent of U.S. broadband households have at
least one smartphone.
61 percent of U.S. mobile phone users have some knowledge of
the term 4G, but only 20 percent understand the term LTE.
As of June 2012, 83 carriers have launched LTE networks in
43 countries; 40 more carriers intend to deploy LTE by year end.
“Deciphering optimal mobile data pricing schemes is an
important piece of operators’ monetization efforts, and many are experimenting
with their mobile data pricing plans,” said Jennifer Kent, Research Analyst,
Parks Associates.
Verizon Wireless recently introduced its ShareEverything
plan, which allows users to share one data quota across multiple mobile
broadband devices. Share data plans should encourage subscribers to add more
mobile devices, while offering unlimited text messaging mitigates the threat of
third-party messaging services like Whatsapp.
