Telecom Lead India: Driven by 4G / LTE, Qualcomm is leading the cellular baseband processor market with 52 percent revenue share in 2012.
The global cellular baseband processor market registered 18 percent year-on-year growth to reach $17.8 billion, according to the Strategy Analytics.
Besides Qualcomm, the other top cellular baseband processor suppliers include MediaTek, Intel, Broadcom and ST-Ericsson.
MediaTek has 12.5 percent revenue share, while Intel has 12.3 percent revenue share.
According to 4G Americas, LTE / 4G connections are expected to grow to 134 million this year from 63 million in 2012. By 2013, around 256 commercial LTE networks are expected to go live with fourth generation mobile broadband.
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4G Americas says 150 mobile operators worldwide have now launched commercial LTE services in 67 countries, 50 of which were launched in the past 5 months.
Strategy Analytics says Qualcomm maintained its dominance in the cellular baseband market on the strength of its time-to-market advantage with leading LTE baseband product portfolio.
Strategy Analytics estimates that LTE basebands accounted for 21 percent of Qualcomm’s total baseband shipments in 2012.
Qualcomm is well-positioned to improve its LTE product-mix further with the help of its strong relationships with global handset manufacturers.
LTE baseband shipments registered more than seven-fold growth in 2012 and significantly contributed to overall revenue growth due to higher than average selling prices. LTE basebands showed the fastest growth among all air interface technologies and accounted for 18 percent of total cellular baseband revenue in 2012, up from just 2 percent in 2011.
Meanwhile, iGR expects 150 deployments of LTE-Advanced by the end of this year, with operators using a variety of the 3GPP Release 10 features including Carrier Aggregation to gain additional benefits such as greater capacity, more intelligent network management, and more flexible deployment options.
According to a recent Ericsson’s mobility report, LTE subscriptions grew from 14 million to 57 million in Q4 2012.
