3G mobile subscriptions grew by 50M during the second quarter of 2015
Global LTE subscriptions reached 740 million connections at the end of the second quarter, surging from 280 million a year earlier, according to Swedish vendor Ericsson. During Q2, the number of LTE subscribers climbed by 115 million.
In its latest interim Mobility Report, Ericsson reported that the number of mobile subscriptions worldwide totaled 7.2 billion at the end of June, up from 6.8 billion one year ago. The number of individual subscribers grew to 4.9 billion from 4.6 billion.
Global mobile broadband subscriptions grew by 140 million in Q2 to reach 3.1 billion, an increase of 25% compared to the year-ago quarter, Ericsson said. While 3G subscriptions increased by 50 million during Q2, GSM-only subscriptions declined by 80 million.
On a regional basis, Asia Pacific, excluding China and India, accounted for 1.42 billion of the total mobile subscriptions, followed by China with 1.30 billion and India with 985 million.
In Africa, there were 930 million mobile subscriptions by the end of June, while Latin America ended June with 725 million subscriptions. At the same time, Central and Eastern Europe had 580 million mobile subscriptions and Western Europe totaled 540 mobile subscriptions.
In North America, total mobile subscriptions reached 390 million at the end of Q2, while in the Middle East region, the number of subscriptions amounted to 385 million, according to Ericsson’s report.
Around 340 million smartphones were sold in Q2, representing more than 75% of all mobile phones sold in the quarter, compared to around 65% in Q2 2014.
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Serbia seeks to award 800 MHz spectrum for LTE services
In EMEA news, Serbia’s Regulatory Telecommunications Agency decided to hold a tender to award three licenses in the 800 MHz band. The licenses will be valid for 10 years and renewable for another five years. The starting price for each of the three licenses will be 17.5 million euros ($19.7 million). Potential bidders must have at least 2 million mobile telephony subscribers and achieved mobile telephony revenue of at least 160 million euros in 2014.
Serbia’s mobile operators launched LTE services earlier this year using spectrum in the 1800 MHz band. The country’s three mobile operators are Telenor, MTS and VIP.
