The UK is Europe’s biggest LTE market in terms of subscribers, new research from Ovum has revealed, as global subscriptions passed the quarter of a billion mark.
Despite launching considerably behind other European nations, with EE the first operator to go live with a 4G service in late 2012, Ovum said the UK led the way across Europe with six million subscribers. There have been 10 launches so far this year, with 96 LTE networks across Europe.
The research agency predicted there would be “many” LTE launches across Eastern Europe and the CIS in the months to come. It said Russia was the biggest LTE market in Eastern Europe, with two million subscribers.
Ovum said the United States was the world’s biggest LTE market, with Verizon and AT&T accounting for 35 percent of global LTE subscriptions. Instead of launching new LTE networks, US operators are more focused on extending coverage.
Thecla Mbongue, Senior Analyst, commented: “There are seven operators worldwide with more than 10 million total LTE subscriptions; the majority of these operators are either US or Japanese operators. Korea was the most penetrated LTE market in 1Q14, with a rate of 47% of the countries population.
“The increased availability and affordability of LTE-capable devices is a major growth driver. However, deployments and usage are still at an early stage globally, except for North America, where LTE represented over one-third of mobile broadband usage in 1Q14. In emerging markets, where prepaid is dominant and handset subsidies less frequent, LTE take-up is slow as coverage is limited and operators prioritize the high-end and business segments.”
The Middle East saw the biggest surge in connections during the past year, with subscribers up 174 percent to three million.
Kristin Paulin, Senior Research Analyst, added: “As at mid-2014, there were 34 LTE deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, split across 16 markets. The region saw its mobile broadband market pass the 1 billion subscriptions mark in early 2014. LTE was the fastest-growing technology, with subscriptions increasing by 102 percent year-on-year and passed the 100 million mark in mid-2014. LTE represented just over nine percent of total mobile broadband subscriptions.
“Japan, Korea and Australia are the second, third and fourth largest markets in the world respectively and the three combined accounted for 32 percent of the global LTE subscriptions in 1Q14.”
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