Recent research figures have shown that even after a significant head start for WiMAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE) has been catching up, with the first quarter revenues for 2011 showing both equipment sectors bringing in $0.5 billion.
By 2015 the total number of subscribers to LTE services is set to hit around 290 million according to a recent report from research company Infonetics Research.
The expansion of WiMAX networks is continuing to grow, although the directing analyst for WiMAX at Infonetics Research advised “WiMAX equipment is one of the few segments of the mobile infrastructure market to see sequential revenue growth this quarter (albeit small), and also is up 49% year-on-year, driven by expansion of existing networks and by the emerging utility and smart grid segment, which is proving fruitful for WiMAX vendors.”
Infonetics has reported that the first quarter of the year saw the LTE infrastructure market topped by Ericsson with second place going to Alcatel Lucent and third place going to Nokia Siemens Networks. The WiMAX market, however, differed in that equipment vendors Motorola, Huawei and Alvarion trailed a long way behind the main vendor Samsung.
The principle analyst for mobile infrastructure at Infonetics Research, Stéphane Téral said “The first quarter of 2011 developed as we anticipated, with the global 2G/3G/4G infrastructure market declining 13.8% sequentially on the heels of a very strong fourth quarter; the market is up 14.4% year-over-year (from the first quarter of 2010), setting the foundation for the new investment cycle that we expect to last through 2014.”
Between 2011 and 2015 Infonetics has forecast that $245 billion will be spent cumulatively by network operators around the world on the infrastructure of mobile networks.
Source – Smart Gorillas