Global LTE mobile infrastructure revenue grew to a record USD 13 billion in the fourth quarter, up 11 percent from the previous quarter and 3 percent year on year, driven by large-scale rollouts in China and India, according to a report from Infonetics. However, China has now reached the end of its massive LTE rollouts led by China Unicom and China Telecom, while LTE builds in Western and Central Europe are very close to completion, suggesting LTE has peaked and 2016 will be its first year of decline, said the report. In total, the LTE market is to decline between 2015 and 2020 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of negative 13 percent, predicts the report.
For the full-year 2015, the worldwide macrocell mobile infrastructure market came to USD 48 billion, with quarterly LTE revenue now USD 2 billion higher than 2G and 3G revenue combined. As of January, 480 commercial LTE and 116 LTE-A networks have been launched.
In terms of manufacturers, Ericsson led the overall 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market in 2015, followed by Huawei, Nokia Networks, ZTE and Alcatel-Lucent.
