Small cell market to hit 3 mn units in 2016

CALIFORNIA, USA: Infonetics Research forecasts the global small cell market to grow rapidly, with about 3 million small cells shipping and the market worth about $2.1 billion in 2016. Moreover, 4G small cell shipments will overtake 3G small cells by 2015.

The market research firm, in its new small cell equipment market size and forecast report, finds that the market growth is being driven by operators seeking to enhance saturated macrocellular networks that are currently struggling to maintain a decent mobile broadband experience for subscribers.

"While small cells, including microcells and picocells, have been used for the past two decades to improve voice coverage, now mobile broadband is shifting the game to capacity upgrades," notes Stéphane Téral, principal analyst, mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, Infonetics Research.

For the next three years or so, most operators are planning small cells only in the urban core. Infonetics expects public space femtocells to make up more than 50 per cent of all small cells shipped in 2012.

"Therefore, the chief objective is to complement and enhance the macrocell layer from a capacity standpoint with a new breed of low-power nodes like public space femtocells and WiFi. However, dividing the macro layers into smaller cells remains challenging due to inter-cell interference and backhaul issues. The question is: how small can the cell be? Because the smaller the cell, the higher the number of units required to cover an area, and that will determine the true size of the small cell market."

In 2013, Infonetics expects 3G small cells to make up 63 per cent of global small cell shipments, with 4G small cells kicking off and ramping up rapidly to make up 37 per cent.

From a geographic perspective, early femtocell adopters such as AT&T, Softbank, and Vodafone and macro network density dictate which regions represent the largest small cell opportunities, with Asia Pacific expected to lead with 44 per cent of all units shipped in 2012, followed by EMEA with 32 per cent.