To see a 404 percent CAGR from 2010 to 2014

May 20, 2009 14:44 GMT  ·  By

A recently published report from Pyramid Research states that the number of Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscriptions all around the world is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014, which will be a much faster rate than any other mobile standard has registered previously, including 3G.

At the same time, the research firm also says that this should be possible due to the fact that most major operators and vendors in the industry are supporting the standard, something that happens for the first time. According to Daniel Locke, analyst at Pyramid Research and author of the report, the usage of LTE, which is a more efficient and cost-effective flat IP architecture, will allow operators to lower the prices for access, while also providing them with faster data rates, and higher traffic allowances, which should boost the adoption of mobile data services.

“To date, 27 mobile operators worldwide have publicly committed to deploying LTE, with 12 of them expected to roll out commercial services in 2010 and the remainder during 2011 and 2012,” Daniel Locke added. Moreover, Pyramid Research also says that LTE will also grow much faster in terms of subscriptions when compared to previous standards.

“While it took nearly six years for UMTS/HSPA to reach 100 million subscriptions, Pyramid predicts that LTE will take just over four years to reach the same milestone,” explains Locke. “The number of LTE subscriptions worldwide will grow at a CAGR of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014 and reach 136 million by year-end 2014,” he says.

Locke also added that most of the LTE subscriptions in the early stage are expected to come from the developed markets, especially given the fact that the first LTE deployments will occur here, and that the United States and Japan will be the leaders in the area. At the same time, he also says that LTE should see a 30 percent faster growth in emerging markets than in developed ones.

Furthermore, the forecast shows that subscriptions in emerging markets are expected to account for 43 percent of the LTE total in 2014, an impressive growth from the 5 percent they should register in 2010. The leading country in emerging markets when it comes to subscription growth is stated to be China, which should see a number of 36.1 million subscriptions in 2014.