The rapid and massive rollout of TD-LTE by China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator, propelled Asia Pacific to $3 billion in LTE infrastructure revenue during 2014's second quarter. That helped make the region into the largest LTE revenue generator, accounting for 54 percent of total global LTE infrastructure revenues, according to Infonetics Research.
China Mobile wrapped up 2014's second quarter with 410,000 eNodeBs. "The astronomical LTE ramp-up in China is overshadowing strong LTE rollouts in Europe, reminiscent of China's great 3G rollout in 2009," says Stephane Teral, Infonetics principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics. He noted that China Unicom and China Telecom also deployed LTE during the second quarter but at a more measured pace.
Infonetics said the global macrocell 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market grew 11 percent year-on-year to total $11.2 billion in the second quarter of 2014. LTE accounted for half of overall mobile infrastructure revenue the quarter, reaching $5.6 billion. The firm noted that there was again an "interesting dynamic" during 2014's second quarter in that "evolved-UTRAN (E-UTRAN) posted strong double-digit growth, while evolved packet core (EPC) took a deep dive."
Infonetics said it has lifted its global mobile infrastructure market forecast due to a bump in CDMA2000 and LTE rollouts. The overall market is now expected to peak at $43.6 billion this year, up from $43 billion in 2013.
For more:
- see this Infonetics release
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