LTE to reach 100mn subscriptions faster than any previous mobile standard

CAMBRIDGE, USA: The number of Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscriptions worldwide will grow at a CAGR of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014, a pace faster than any previous mobile standard, including 3G, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.

LTE's Five-Year Global Forecast: Poised to Grow Faster than 3G identifies the main technical and business drivers, as well as the challenges for the LTE platform, and analyzes its market opportunity in comparison with earlier mobile technologies in their first few years of commercialization.

The 19-page report provides Pyramid Research's five-year outlook on LTE adoption, highlighting the largest LTE markets, and comparing adoption rates in emerging and developed markets. It also examines the LTE-related products, demos, and announcements of six of the largest vendors worldwide, including an analysis of how they compare with one another in terms of time to market and customer wins.

For the first time, most of the major players, operators, and vendors alike, are behind the same mobile standard, notes Daniel Locke, analyst at Pyramid Research and author of the report. "By using LTE's more efficient and cost-effective flat IP architecture, mobile operators can transfer the savings to end users in the form of lower prices for access, faster data rates, and higher traffic allowances for a wider adoption of mobile data services," he says.

"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," he adds.

Pyramid expects LTE to grow more rapidly than preceding mobile standards in terms of subscriptions. "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.

"The majority of LTE subscriptions in the early stage will come in developed markets, where most of the first LTE deployments will occur -- with the US and Japan leading," Locke says. "However, LTE will grow 30 percent faster in emerging markets than developed ones; subscriptions in emerging markets will account for 43 percent of the LTE total in 2014, up from 5 percent in 2010," he adds. Fueled by vendor support of TDD-mode, growth in emerging markets will be driven largely by China with 36.1 million subscriptions in 2014.

Download an excerpt of this report here!

LTE's Five-Year Global Forecast: Poised to Grow Faster than 3G is priced at $595 and can be purchased online here: or by contacting Jeff Claudino via email at claudino@pyr.com or telephone at +1-619-229-9940.