WCDMA Subscribers to Top 1 Billion by 2012, says Dell’Oro Group

In a newly released report by Dell’Oro Group, WCDMA revenues are expected to be the main driver of growth for the mobility infrastructure market over the next five years, while both GSM and CDMA revenues are projected to decline steadily over the same period. By 2012, WCDMA revenues are forecasted to surpass the peak reached by GSM revenues this past year.

“A couple of key factors will fuel future growth of the WCDMA market,” said Scott Siegler, Analyst of Mobility Infrastructure research at Dell’Oro Group.

“First, we are forecasting the WCDMA subscriber base to grow to over one billion in 2012. Second, over the next several years the percentage of these subscribers accessing large amounts of data and demanding the higher-speeds that WCDMA/HSPA networks can provide will be an overwhelming majority,” added Siegler.

The report also indicates that the WiMAX and 3GPP LTE market segments will begin to contribute revenues to the overall mobility infrastructure market during the next five years. WiMAX is expected to add revenues in the near term, especially given the availability of commercial WiMAX service this year, while 3GPP LTE revenues are forecasted to ramp in 2011.