Wireless penetration to double from 15% at end 2001 to 30% by end 2006
Tuesday 29th January 2002
From a base of almost 900 million at the end of 2001, worldwide cellular subscriber numbers are forecast to rise to 1.9 billion by end 2006. Despite a challenging environment in the handset market caused by low replacement rates, global subscriber growth prospects remain buoyant.
"The global market is becoming increasingly polarized with very little subscriber growth left in W. Europe, and continuing advances towards saturation in N. America, Japan and Korea - regions where operator strategies are focused on fighting churn and boosting ARPUs," notes Phil Kendall, Director of the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice. "At the other end of the spectrum are the emerging markets in S. E. Asia, Latin America and Africa, which still have massive growth potential." The current global market supporting GSM, CDMA, TDMA, PDC and a variety of analog standards will consolidate around GSM/W-CDMA and CDMAOne/CDMA2000 systems.
"The GSM/W-CDMA camp will continue dominate the cellular landscape, accounting for 76% of worldwide users in 2006," comments David Kerr, VP of the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice. "However, GSM will show a much slower evolution to 3G than CDMAOne - almost two-thirds of 3G phones in use in 2006 will be CDMA2000 devices."
These findings are presented in "Worldwide Cellular Forecast Update (2001-2006)", a study published recently by Strategy Analytics within its strategic advisory service, Wireless Network Strategies. This service provides leading players in the wireless industry with insights into key market, technology, and consumer behavior trends. The report provides forecasts for North America, W. Europe, S.E. Asia, Central and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Rest of the World.
3g.co.uk
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we're talkin' maybe 4 or 5 hundred million CDMA handsets, with most of the high end and many devices. |
