GSA confirms LTE passed 1 billion subscriptions milestone in Q4

7 Mar 2016
Joe Barrett

GSA confirms LTE passed 1 billion subscriptions milestone in Q4: ended 2015 with 1.068 billion

March 7, 2016: GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, confirms that LTE continues to grow faster than any other mobile communications system technology and is now responsible for 1 in 7 mobile connections worldwide.

LTE gained almost 156 million connections in Q4 2015, which is 75% more than 3G/HSPA systems. The number of LTE and LTE-Advanced subscriptions is expected to pass the 3G/WCDMA-HSPA global total in 2020. GSM subscriptions fell by 141 million in the quarter.

Analysing mobile subscriptions data provided to GSA by Ovum Ltd for Q4 2015, GSA noted that the number of LTE and LTE-Advanced subscriptions reached 1.068 billion worldwide by 31 December 2015. A total of 552.2 million LTE subscriptions worldwide were gained during the past year, representing 107% annual growth.

Alan Hadden, Vice President of Research, GSA said: “A daily average of almost 1.7 million LTE subscriptions were being signed up during Q4 2015 and the rate of LTE subscriptions growth is accelerating. LTE technology is now being used by 1 in 7 mobile subscriptions worldwide. ”

APAC, with over 580 million LTE subscriptions, further grew its share of global LTE subscriptions to 54.3%. By December 2015 China had passed 386 million LTE subscriptions, adding almost 84 million in Q4 alone. North America remains the second largest LTE market with almost 237 million, though its share of the world market further declined to 22.2% of the global total. European share remained in the mid-teens (14.8%).

Strong growth was recorded again in the Latin America and Caribbean region having more than quadrupled its number of 4G/LTE subscriptions to over 54 million. More than 1 million LTE subscriptions were added during each month in the Middle East and the region now has 32.5 million LTE subscriptions, having achieved an annual growth of around 110%. Russia has over 11.7 million LTE subscriptions.

480 operators have commercially launched LTE systems in 157 countries, according to GSA data announced on January 25, 2016. GSA forecasts there will be 550 commercially launched LTE networks by end 2016.

More than 1 in 3 operators are investing in LTE-Advanced system deployments, with the commercialisation of carrier aggregation the first feature to be exploited. 116 operators, i.e. over 24% of all LTE operators, have commercially launched LTE-Advanced service in 57 countries.

The global mobile subscriptions total reached 7.343 billion by the end of 2015 which GSA calculates is equivalent to 100% penetration of the global population.

Charts confirming the LTE subscriptions growth and regional shares are available via the GSA website http://www.gsacom.com

ABOUT GSA

GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) represents GSM/EDGE/WCDMA-HSPA/HSPA+, LTE/LTE-Advanced and future 5G suppliers. GSA brings together a global industry community of telecoms professionals through its website, reports, information papers and practical activities to inform, influence, educate, explain and promote the opportunities enabled by mobile broadband systems. The GSA website www.gsacom.com has over 70,500 registered users for knowledge gathering and information sharing of key facts, trends and analysis, and over 26,000 connections on our social network platforms LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Over 1 million GSA reports, presentations, information papers, maps, charts and other resources were downloaded from www.gsacom.com in under five years.

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