LTE Macro Base Station Market Exhibits Dynamism: NPD In-stat Report

According to a new NPD In-Stat Research, the position of the big seven players in the Asia Pacific LTE Macro Base Station market is subject to change and may radically alter based on wireless operator LTE contract awards and deployments.

NPD In-Stat estimates that the dominant LTE infrastructure equipment provider is likely to change annually and the big seven, which comprise of 94 percent of the market, are likely to battle it out for the first place.

This is borne out by the fact that although NEC was the dominant provider in 2009, it was ousted by Ericsson in 2010. NPD In-stat projects that the picture will change again in 2011 with Samsung becoming the dominant Asia Pacific LTE infrastructure provider in 2011 with over 10,000 LTE base station deployments across the Asia Pacific region.

One point of difference the research notes is that Ericsson had broad support across many operators in the region, while Samsung's deployments are concentrated in South Korea with a few operators.

Analyst Chris Kissel indicates that the market will not be static and although three major players are projected to make strong gains, Huawei, with the most LTE base station deployments, is most likely to lead the Asian region by 2015. However, given the uncertainty that exists in respect of 17 percent of projected deployments, this also may change.

The research also states that by 2015, there will be over one billion LTE PoPs in Asia Pacific countries and by 2015 and from 2009 to 2015, the Asia Pacific LTE packet backhaul equipment investment by operator will account for over US$ 5 billion in revenue.

The Big four Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, and Huawei will account for at least 57 percent of the total spending. Although Alcatel is expected to continue its domination for LTE EPC/router/gateway equipment, there is bound to a slight downtrend in its leadership position.

According to a recent report by In-Stat, people are shifting focus from wireless 4G technology and ultra-mobile broadband to LTE and WiMAX. In-Stat reports that LTE Advanced and 802.16m WiMAX are being tailored to offer 100Mbps mobile throughput and 1Gbps stationary throughput. These extremely high throughput capabilities are predicted to be an important part of the ITU’s IMT-Advanced requirements.