The worldwide LTE market is set to double this year, surpassing the $10 billion mark in equipment sales as carriers prepare for the second wave of network deployments, according to a new report from Infonetics Research.
The firm noted that growth in 2012 in the United States, Japan and South Korea are set to receive a boost from deployments beginning in Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2013.
“The United States, Japan, and South Korea have been fueling the engine with LTE, but weak activity in BRIC countries dragged the overall mobile infrastructure market in 2012,” explained Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. “The good news, though, is that this year BRIC is coming back with some serious LTE spending.”
Téral also noted that the next phase of LTE technology, LTE-Advanced, was set to begin witnessing deployments across portions of Japan, South Korea and Russia later this year.
Infrastructure giant Ericsson maintained its leadership position in the LTE space at the end of 2012, with No. 2 Alcatel-Lucent posting its best LTE quarter during the final three months of the year and Nokia Siemens Networks reportedly gaining significant market share. Overall, Infonetics Research found that LTE revenues surged 115% in 2012 due to deployments in the United States, Japan and South Korea, with the GSM Suppliers Association reporting 145 commercial LTE networks having launched across 66 countries as of January 2013.
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