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India, China, Japan to drive global TD-LTE mkt

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: By the end of 2012, global LTE subscriptions are expected to exceed 4 crore. This will be a fourfold increase over the 90 lakh global LTE subscriptions in 2011.

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According to ABI Research, the wide range of expected LTE smartphone launches in 2012 from major OEMs such as Nokia, Samsung, and Apple, as well as the surge in data consumption, are the main causes behind the rise in LTE subscriptions. India, China and Japan are collectively forecasted to account for 9.2 crore TD-LTE subscriptions.

LTE subscriptions from the Asia Pacific region is expected to overtake North America by 2014 and this region will be primarily driven by adoption in China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Presently, the North American region accounts for 60 per cent of total LTE subscriptions, followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 37 per cent.

"South Korea and Japan are witnessing amazing LTE subscription growth due to the availability of high-quality content, enabling the countries to be the next largest LTE markets after the US. Having LTE data plans priced on par with 3G data plans were a major factor that accelerated the migration over to LTE,” said Research Associate Ying Kang Tan.

The Asia-Pacific will also be the main growth engine for TD-LTE. Global TD-LTE subscription numbers will grow from 10 lakh subscriptions at the end of 2012 to 13.9 crore subscriptions by 2017.

"However, spectrum fragmentation still remains the main obstacle preventing LTE subscribership in the Asia-Pacific region to go full throttle. With LTE deployed in more than five spectrum bands, it creates additional costs for handset OEMs to develop an LTE smartphone for every band,” says mobile services practice director Dan Shey.

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