GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, today said LTE networks added almost 156 million connections globally in Q4 2015.
LTE subscriber base addition in Q4 was 75 percent more than 3G/HSPA systems.
The number of LTE and LTE-Advanced subscriptions is expected to pass the number of 3G/WCDMA-HSPA subscriber base in 2020. GSM subscriptions fell by 141 million in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The number of LTE and LTE-Advanced subscriptions reached 1.068 billion by 31 December 2015. The number of LTE subscriptions rose 107 percent to 552.2 million during the past year.
“A daily average of almost 1.7 million LTE subscriptions was being signed up during Q4 2015 and the rate of LTE subscriptions growth is accelerating. LTE technology is now being used by 1 in 7 mobile subscriptions,” said Alan Hadden, vice president of Research, GSA.
The number of LTE subscriptions rose 54.3 percent to over 580 million in Asia Pacific.
China added 84 million LTE subscribers in Q4 2015 to reach a total of 386 million LTE subscriptions in 2015.
North America remains the second largest LTE market with almost 237 million, though its share of the world market declined to 22.2 percent of the global total. European share in LTE market was 14.8 percent.
More than 1 million LTE subscriptions were added during each month in the Middle East and the region now has 32.5 million LTE subscriptions, having achieved an annual growth of around 110 percent. Russia has over 11.7 million LTE subscriptions.
480 operators have commercially launched LTE systems in 157 countries. GSA forecasts there will be 550 commercially launched LTE networks by end 2016.
More than 1 in 3 operators are investing in LTE-Advanced deployments. 116 operators commercially launched LTE-Advanced service in 57 countries.
