The size of the small cell market is expected to grow to $10.65 billion by 2021 – at a CAGR of close to 19 percent during the forecast period of 2017-2021.
The maximum incremental growth in the small cell market will be in Asia Pacific, said analyst firm Technavio.
The increasing requirements for high-speed data networks in most of the countries in the Asia Pacific region are the drivers for the growth in small cell market. China and Japan are the major revenue contributors for the small cell segment in Asia Pacific, driven by an increase in green technologies by most medium and large-sized enterprises.
Telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Infocomm, China Mobile, among others, are offering the high-speed 4G services in the Asia Pacific region. China Mobile is aiming to have 500 million 4G subscribers shortly. Reliance Jio is riding on its free voice and data services to add the first 100 million by March 2017. Airtel’s 4G subscriber targets are not known.
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The Technavio report on small cells considers revenue generated from small-cell equipment and devices in the residential and small office and home office (SOHO), enterprise, urban, and rural and remote.
“Small cell technology plays an important role in expanding the capacity of wireless networks for telecom operators. It provides flexibility and increases the service quality at an economical cost,” says Abhishek Sharma, one of the lead analysts at Technavio for M2M and connected devices research.
Small cells, which are considered for green technology adoption, assists telecom operators to reduce the number of cell towers required to get a better signal with less power.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) last week announced a consultation paper to promote green energy among Indian mobile operators.
Small cells provide a cost-effective way to meet the rising demand for mobile broadband services, mostly in large and complex indoor areas. Small cells provide a better, quicker user experience even from a low power, cost-effective location, thereby pushing for their increased adoption.
Integrated small cells and carrier Wi-Fi are expected to satisfy the projected eight-fold increase in smartphone traffic between 2015 and 2020.
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The number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices is expected to hit 32.5 billion by 2020.
Smart applications such as traffic management, vehicle diagnostics, and video surveillance require high-speed 4G and 5G networks for efficient functioning. These requirements will lead to a faster adoption of the small cell technology for a quick rollout of increased network capacity, thus driving market growth.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com