Telecom market research agency Ovum has revealed the LTE market share and growth for Q2 2016.
LTE technology has captured 60 percent share in North America, according to 5G Americas’ mobile subscriber data for the second quarter of 2016.
LTE technology has 34 percent share in Oceania and South and Southeast Asia and 30 percent in Western Europe.
GSA, a telecom industry association, recently predicted that the number of LTE and LTE-Advanced subscriptions worldwide will pass the 3G/WCDMA-HSPA global total in 2019.
Latin America and the Caribbean saw an addition of 55 million LTE connections, gaining a 12 percent share of market in the region, with LTE market share tripling, from 4 percent to 12 percent.
“LTE continues to make tremendous progress in the Americas and the entire world in terms of connections, deployments and technical development,” conveyed Chris Pearson, president at 5G Americas.
When compared to Western Europe with 39 percent penetration and Oceania, South and Southeast Asia with 35 percent penetration, the penetration rate in U.S. and Canada is equivalent to the combined total of the next highest regions, with the highest market share for LTE in comparison to all mobile wireless technologies.
U.S. and Canada have a market share of 60 percent versus Oceania, South and Southeast Asia at 34 percent and 30 percent in Western Europe.
Market share indicated the percentage of mobile wireless connections that are LTE technology versus all other mobile technologies.
There have been 268 million LTE connections resulting in a net gain of 70 million new LTE customers in the last 12 months, leading to 36 percent growth rate. LTE is forecast to reach 398 million connections at the end of 2020, excluding M2M, becoming around 93 percent of the market share.
Latin America and the Caribbean with 85 commercial LTE networks in 44 countries, 702 million total mobile wireless subscriptions, 82 million LTE connections with 55 million additions in comparison to respective 2015 quarter, with LTE forecasting to reach 109 million connections at the end of 2016, excluding M2M, hence gaining a 16 percent share of market.
Global LTE & LTE-Advanced have touched a figure of 1.4 billion LTE connections from the net 7.5 billion total cellular connections worldwide, with 684 million new LTE subscriptions showing an 89 percent growth increase.
LTE connections will touch an estimate of four billion by 2020, excluding M2M, with the LTE global market share estimated to reach nearly 50 percent by 2020.
With the expected capabilities of 5G creating huge expectations and demand, operators have stated that they will deploy pre-standard networks for fixed applications, as early as 2017.
Though 5G will not overrule LTE, both technologies will be in use side-by-side in the late-2020s with the two technologies tightly integrated in a manner transparent to users.
Vina Krishnan
editor@telecomlead.com