Alcatel-Lucent beats Ericsson in LTE equipment market in Q2 2011

Two leading telecom infrastructure vendors — Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson – are in a tight race in the fast-growing LTE equipment segment, with ALU edging ahead of Ericsson by a fraction in global revenue in Q2 2011, according to Infonetics Research.

 

Alcatel-Lucent is very active in the LTE equipment space. Recently, Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile reached a major milestone in the creation of next generation wireless services by staging the first mobile broadband video call on a 4G LTE mobile network to connect a fixed location and a car in Shanghai with Alcatel-Lucent offices in New Jersey.

 

Alcatel-Lucent and Chunghwa Telecom have recently conducted a successful 4G LTE field trial. There is a clear path to evolve service to a network entirely based on Internet Protocol (IP) transmission. This will support 2G and 3G wireless networks, and the eventual move to high-speed 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE).

 

Globally, LTE and WiMAX deployments spending grew 25.2 percent year-over year (Q2 2010 to Q2 2011) and up 4.5 percent sequentially in Q2 2011.

“WiMAX continues its solid performance, finding growth from network expansions plus new niches in utility networks. Despite now being overtaken by LTE, as had been expected, UQ’s investment in 802.16m shows there is an alternative 4G roadmap,” said Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and small cells at Infonetics Research and co-author of the report.

 

LTE equipment spending in Q2 2011 was about $0.6 billion and WiMAX at $0.5 billion. The combined LTE and WiMAX equipment spending is likely to grow at a 46 percent annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2010 to 2015.

“Although LTE and 4G continue to make the headlines, GSM was definitely the 2Q11 reality, with massive capacity upgrades in China and India. In addition, 2G and 3G network modernization with multi-standard base transceiver stations (BTS) continues to be strong and will remain the main theme throughout the second half of 2011,” said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure, Infonetics Research.

 

By Baburajan K
[email protected]