Date: 06/03/2011

WiMAX equipment market jumped 85% in 2010 to reach $1.7 billion

Infonetics Research's analyst Stéphane Téral said, the global 2G/3G/4G infrastructure market declined 10.7% to $42.4 billion in 2010, dragged down by 2G, but is expected to rebound by 9.7% this year (2011), driven by large-scale 2G capacity upgrades, 2G network modernization, and 3G coverage optimization. It's only in 2015 that 4G (LTE and WiMAX) will have a more significant impact when a new global procurement cycle starts.

"WiMAX likely will become established as the solution of choice for niche applications, such as supporting the smart grid, public safety, private citywide communications segments, as well as more basic broadband needs. With the high volume of LTE news, people tend to overlook the fact that the WiMAX equipment market, which jumped 85% in 2010 to $1.7 billion, remains bigger than the LTE market, and continues to show healthy growth," notes Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices at Infonetics Research.

Some of the other finding from Infonetics are:

After plunging in the second half of 2010, the GSM RAN market bounced back (up 38% in 4Q10 over 3Q10), fueled by the start of major 2G capacity upgrades in China and India as well as modernization projects in Europe.
LTE network equipment, including E-UTRAN (eNodeB) macrocells and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) equipment, jumped 704% in 2010 over 2009.
Infonetics forecasts the 4G infrastructure market to hit $16 billion by 2015, driven by LTE and WiMAX investments.
Ericsson is the #1 LTE infrastructure vendor, followed by Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks.
Samsung remains the top-selling WiMAX vendor, followed by Huawei, Alvarion, and Motorola
The number of 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile subscribers is forecast by Infonetics to reach 7 billion by 2015.

Leading companies in the LTE WiMAX market include Acme Packet, Airspan, Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Apertio, Aperto, Aviat (Harris-Stratex), Cisco (Starent), Datang Mobile, Ericsson, Fujitsu, GENBAND, HP, Huawei, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens, Proxim, Redline, Samsung, Tellabs, UTStarcom, ZTE.