CDMA grows steadily
infosync.no
By: Jørgen Sundgot, Thursday, 05.09.02 09:32 GMT
According to the most recent numbers from the CDMA Development Group, there are now over 127 million CDMA subscribers worldwide - and CDMA2000 has 99 percent of the 3G market.
The CDMA Development Group (CDG) recently reported that the CDMA technology saw more than 127 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter of 2002, all the while CDMA2000 subscribers - designated on a whole by the CDG as a 3G technology despite its 1xRTT substandard not fulfilling the requirements of the IMT-2000 specification - grew to 15 million worldwide as of July 2002.
Over the past year, CDMA subscribers grew by 32 percent, while the CDMA2000 base increased nearly 21 times. CDMA is the leading technology in North America, where with 55.3 million subscribers, CDMA increased its market share from 43 to 47 percent. In Latin America, the number of CDMA subscribers grew by more than 40 percent in the past year, reaching 24 million in 15 countries.
The CDMA2000 base has nearly doubled in the past four months and is now growing at a rate of 1.8 million per month. The CDG said that with a 99 percent market share, CDMA2000 dominates 3G today, continuing its push to dub CDMA2000 technology - of which the vast majority are built upon CDMA2000 1xRTT networks not fulfilling the minimum requirements of the IMT-2000 specification for a technology to be dubbed 3G - as just that.
The adoption rate of the technology is however impressive in Asia: In Korea, 38 percent of subscribers use CDMA2000 technology and in Japan, KDDI has signed on 1.67 million CDMA2000 customers in only five months. KDDI adds on average 10,000 new CDMA2000 subscribers a day, and expects to have 7 million, or 40 percent of their base, using services in their CDMA2000 network by March 2003. During the first seven months of 2002, 11 CDMA2000 networks were launched in Asia and the Americas bringing the total number of CDMA2000 service providers to 18. |
