Telecom Lead India: Around 60 million WCDMA/HSPA (3G) subscriptions were added globally in the first quarter of 2013, according to a report by Ericsson.
LTE / 4G technology has added 20 million new subscriptions in Q1 2013 and GSM/EDGE-only subscriptions added 30 million.
LTE subscriptions will increase to 2 billion in 2018 from the earlier forecast of 1.6 billion.
By Q1 2013, mobile subscriptions exceeded 6.4 billion. By the end of 2018, they are expected to reach 9.1 billion, according to Ericsson Mobility Report released today.
Global mobile broadband subscriptions reached around 1.7 billion in Q1 2013, and are predicted to reach 7 billion in 2018.
Mobile broadband will gain a larger share of total broadband subscriptions in many markets, complementing xDSL in certain segments and replacing it in others. Mobile broadband also includes some feature phones.
In 2018, almost all handsets in Western Europe and North America will be smartphones, compared to 40-50 percent of handset subscriptions in the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific regions.
LTE
LTE is currently being deployed and built-out in all regions and will reach around 2 billion subscriptions in 2018. These subscriptions will represent the high-end share of the total subscriber base by 2018.
Rapid migration to more advanced technologies in developed countries means global GSM/EDGE-only subscription numbers will decline after 2012-2013.
Globally, GSM/EDGE will continue to lead in terms of subscription numbers until the latter years of the forecast period. This is because new, less affluent users entering networks in growing markets will be likely to use the cheapest mobile phones and subscriptions available. In addition, it takes time for the installed base of phones to be upgraded.
LTE technology will represent the majority of subscriptions in the North America region 2016, growing to around 70 percent in 2018. GSM/EDGE-only subscriptions will progressively decline. This fast growth in LTE subscriptions is driven by strong competition and consumer demand, following CDMA operators’ early decisions to migrate to LTE.
Ericsson Mobility Report says Latin America has a large GSM/EDGE subscriber base. The strong growth in subscriptions in this region will be driven by economic development and consumer demand.
In 2018, WCDMA/HSPA will be the dominant technology, however GSM/EDGE-only subscriptions will still have a significant presence. As a mature market, Western Europe will show little growth in subscriptions. HSPA is the dominant technology in the region.
By 2018, LTE will penetrate around 35 percent of the subscriptions base in Western Europe. Data services were rolled out early in this region, initially accessed via dongle or PC. The drive for LTE has not yet been as strong in Europe, partly because there are many well-developed 3G networks in the region.
In the Asia Pacific region, markets like Japan and South Korea will take up LTE subscriptions early compared to less developed countries. China will add substantial LTE numbers towards the end of our forecast period.
CDMA will continue to grow gradually in absolute numbers, especially in China and Indonesia, but the CDMA share of subscriptions will decline.
TD-SCDMA subscriptions will start to decline at the end of the forecast period.
Central and Eastern Europe shows an increase in HSPA subscriptions. LTE will initially grow in the most developed parts of the region, and will be present in most countries by 2018.
The Middle East and Africa region was dominated by GSM/EDGE in 2012. By 2018 it will have the largest share of GSM/EDGE, driven by demand for low cost phones.
Traffic outlook
In 2013, overall mobile data traffic is expected to continue the trend of doubling each year. Mobile PCs dominate traffic in most regions, except in North America. However, smartphone traffic is growing faster due to the high growth in subscriptions. In the latter years of the forecast period, data traffic will be split fairly equally between mobile phones on the one hand, and tablets, mobile routers and mobile PCs on the other.
Mobile data traffic will grow considerably faster than fixed data traffic over the forecast period. However, in absolute volume, fixed data traffic will remain dominant over the same period. Accessing the internet through dedicated apps such as social networks and picture messaging will drive mobile traffic development. Mobile data traffic is expected to grow with a CAGR of around 50 percent (2012-2018), driven mainly by video. This will result in growth of around 12 times by the end of 2018.
Phone coverage
GSM/EDGE technology has by far the widest reach and today covers more than 85 percent of the world’s population. If Japan and Korea – two countries that have not deployed GSM/EDGE – are excluded, then the GSM/EDGE world population coverage would be around 90 percent. The areas that remain to be covered by GSM/EDGE in countries that use the technology are sparsely populated.
By the end of 2012, WCDMA/HSPA covered 55 percent of the world’s population. Further build-out of WCDMA/HSPA will be driven by a number of factors: increased user demand for internet access, the increasing affordability of smartphones, and regulatory requirements to connect the unconnected. By the end of 2018, over 85 percent of the world’s population
Latin America lacks a well built-out fixed telecommunications infrastructure. Because of this, the majority of people in the region will first become regular internet users over mobile networks.
Last year’s GSM population coverage in Latin America and its subsequent forecast for 2018 closely mirrors the overall global situation.
The WCDMA/HSPA population coverage is somewhat lower in Latin America than the global average. It is estimated that by 2018, 80 percent of the population in this region will be covered by WCDMA/HSPA networks.
Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are early adopters of LTE compared to the rest of Latin America. It is forecast that this technology’s population coverage in Latin America will increase from approximately 5 percent to over 50 percent by 2018. During the same period the number of LTE subscriptions is expected to grow from about 200,000 to 95 million.
By the end of 2012 LTE is estimated to cover 10 percent of the world’s population. Looking ahead 6 years, it is predicted that LTE will cover approximately 60 percent of the world’s population, according to Ericsson Mobility Report.
