According to a recent report from the Dell'Oro Group, W-CDMA will eat into CDMA's marketshare with "exceptional" growth over the next several years. While short-term growth will just eke along, longer-term growth for the technology will see it slowly displace GSM, because of the growing list of carriers worldwide that have committed to W-CDMA technology. Dell'Oro points to emerging markets like India, Brazil and Korea as key growth areas that are transitioning from a GSM network to W-CDMA.
Dell'Oro's report also predicts that W-CDMA technology will capture "meaningful market share" from CDMA as carriers in key growth areas such as India, Brazil and Korea migrate their subscriber bases to GSM or W-CDMA-based services.
This is not the first time we've heard the call for CDMA's deathknell: Last year CDMA pioneer Qualcomm and other CDMA proponents defended CDMA's marketshare prospects as detractors pointed to carriers that planned on switching over to W-CDMA. Dell'Oro's commentary certainly adds more fuel to the claims of W-CDMA pushers.
For more on W-CDMA's longterm prospects:
- read this article from RCR News