LTE Device Ecosystem – June 2021
GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) monitors and researches worldwide mobile broadband developments and publishes facts, statistics and trends. This report confirms that 19,982 LTE user devices have been identified as launched (including 511 commercial 5G devices also supporting LTE) from 853 manufacturers and provides an analysis of the main developments and trends.
This report covers LTE FDD and TDD (TD-LTE) models and LTE-related cellular IoT devices standardised by 3GPP as UE Cat-M1/M2 and UE Cat-NB1/NB2.
LTE user devices
While 5G grabs the headlines, LTE still dominates global mobile telecoms. There are 811 operators with commercially launched public mobile or broadband fixed-wireless access networks (GSA: NTS Database May 2021). There were 5.95 billion LTE subscriptions globally by the end of Q4 2020 (source: Omdia, March 2021). LTE accounts for 62.2% of mobile subscriptions globally. Given this huge market, it is not surprising that there is a vibrant base of technology suppliers supporting operators with LTE networks and within that, a large number of vendors selling a huge array of devices.
There are 19,982 LTE-capable user devices including frequency and operator variants from 853 suppliers catalogued in GSA’s GAMBoD database, a 19% increase in the number of devices since June 2020. The number of devices catalogued in the GAMBoD database has continued to grow rapidly, at an average growth rate of more than 2,900 devices per year for the past four years.
Form factor
The phone form factor accounts for the largest number of identified devices with 11,422 phone models catalogued, including operator and frequency variants, giving a 57.2% share of all LTE devices. The number of LTE-capable indoor and outdoor FWA CPE stands at 713 devices, while the number of other LTE-capable routers (including industrial/enterprise CPE/routers, mobile hotspots and other router devices) is 3,431 devices. The LTE module and LTE-connected tablet PC segments (1,717 and 1,294 devices respectively) are also large. Other categories being tracked include USB modems (363 devices), asset trackers (254), cameras (175), notebooks (131) and smart watches (96), as well as car hotspots, vehicle on-board units (OBUs), femtocells, fixed wireless terminals/phones, data loggers/IoT sensors, drones, kiosk terminals, PC cards, POS machines, projectors, smart-home devices, vehicle accessories, intercoms, encoders, voice translators and wearable devices.
LTE Device Ecosystem – June 2021
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© GSA 2021
