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LTE forecasts worldwide

14/06/2010
27 million subscribers in 2012 and an expected 300 million in 2015
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IDATE forecasts the rates of LTE adoption in 2012 and 2015. “By ‘LTE adoption’, we mean the number of subscribers who access the mobile data via the LTE network.” says Frédéric Pujol, Mobile Broadband Practice Director, “As at end 2015, we expect 13% of the subscriber base to be accessing LTE networks with discrepancies depending on countries.”

More specifically, LTE subscribers should grow in the 2012-2015 period from 27 million to close to 300 million at end 2015 (EU5+Scandinavia, Japan, South Korea, China, USA).

• The GSA (Global Suppliers Association) is reporting 110 LTE network commitments in 48 countries at end May 2010. Up to 22 LTE networks should be in service by end 2010 and up to 37 LTE networks should be in service by end 2012.

• We based our estimates on estimated commercial launches of LTE services in 5 distinct regions/countries i.e, the USA, the EU5 plus Scandinavia, Japan, South Korea and China. They all have different backgrounds which affect their adoption of LTE and latest news is mentioned in each sub-sections.

• We think LTE services will not be launched before end 2011-2012 in EU5 and China, and not before end 2010-2011 in the USA, Japan and South Korea. We took into account recent commercial launches in Scandinavia.

• Regarding India which started 3G and BWA spectrum auctions in April 2010, the country cannot be ignored because of its huge population. IDATE expect LTE adoption could be driven by TD-LTE if BWA spectrum can be used for this technology in India.