Global LTE connections market share compared to other mobile technologies reached 28 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2017, an increase of 11 percentage points in one year according to the latest study by Ovum for industry association 5G Americas. In total, LTE subscriptions grew by 863 million year on year to reach 2.16 billion at the end of March, with the figure set to continue rising to nearly 2.5 billion connections by the end of 2017, 3 billion in 2018 and 4.2 billion connections in 2020.
The North America region achieved 308.5 million LTE subscriptions by the end of March 2017 with the highest penetration rates and largest market share for LTE in the world. In fact, its penetration rate of 85 percent is far ahead of the next two highest regions of Western Europe, and Oceania, Eastern and Southeastern Asia, both with 50 percent.
Latin America doubled LTE connections to 139.8 million at the end of the first quarter from 68.6 million the previous year and grew LTE market share by 100 percent from 9.7 percent to 20 percent, said the report. LTE connections rose significantly at 16.5 percent growth in one quarter alone (Q4 2016 to Q1 2017).
However, Central and Southern Asia saw the fastest year-on-year growth in the first quarter with a rate of some 1,804 percent, while Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East also grew more than 100 percent in the past twelve months.
