Mobile subscribers — including GSM, W-CDMA, LTE, TD-CDMA, cdmaOne, CDMA2000 — are forecast to pass the 6-billion mark in 2012, and to approach 7 billion by 2016, according to a new report from Infonetics. 
Some highlights of the report:
- Infonetics expects more than 200 million traditional voice access lines to get dropped over the next the 5 years as people continue to ‘cut the cord’
- China Mobile, Vodafone, and América Móvil are the world’s top mobile operators by number of subscribers
- The number of LTE subscribers is forecast by Infonetics to near 450 million by 2016
- Despite some subscriber migration to TD-LTE, WiMAX subscribers are expected to grow at a 35% compound annual growth rate through 2016, when they will top 132 million
- DSL continues to grow despite competition from cable, FTTH, and LTE, with DSL subscribers accounting for over 2/3 of all wireline broadband subscriptions in 2011.
"The number of mobile broadband subscribers jumped nearly 50% in 2011 to 846 million and we expect that number to reach 2.6 billion by 2016, driven by Brazil, Russia, India, China and others in the developing world,�? notes Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research’s principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics. “We anticipate Asia Pacific to account for over half of the world’s mobile broadband subscribers by 2016, while Latin America will see the fastest growth."
http://www.infonetics.com
