The worldwide 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market totaled $9.8 billion in Q1 2013, down 9% sequentially, and down 2% year-over-year, according to a new report from Infonetics. Overall sales fell despite another LTE ramp-up driven by North America and Europe.
"We are clearly seeing the broad shift to LTE and its direct effect on 2G, 3G, and WiMAX,” notes Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. “Typically strong 2G and 3G markets, China in particular, did not come to the rescue this time around. In fact, China and Russia had a busy 1Q13 selecting LTE vendors."
Some additional highlights:
- LTE revenue was $2.7 billion in 1Q13, an increase of 21% quarter-over-quarter and 108% year-over-year, though Infonetics believes an appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Japanese Yen erased at least 5% of revenue
- WiMAX continued its decline, dropping 42% in 1Q13 from the previous quarter
- After dragging down 4Q12, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are shaping up as a major engine for 2013; case in point: Brazil added to the 1Q13 revenue mix when its 4 mobile operators kicked off LTE rollouts
- Ericsson remains king of the RAN, with double the revenue market share of #2 Nokia Siemens Networks
- Infonetics expects 3G RAN to continue to be greater than GSM moving forward solely driven by W-CDMA
- Global mobile subscribers are forecast by Infonetics to reach 7 billion by 2017, with LTE subscribers making up just 8% of total subscribers.
