Mobile industry association GSMA on Monday shared top 10 telecom markets based on 4G LTE subscriptions in 2013.
The North American mobile market is the leader in the LTE market.
Growth of North American LTE market
After the first commercial 4G LTE network launch in Q3 2010, 4G mobile connections reached 85 million in 2013. Canada, the ninth-largest market, had 2.7 million 4G connections during the period, said GSMA.
4G accounted for approximately one in four of the total mobile connections in North America in 2013, the highest proportion of any global region.
Close to 97 per cent of the entire population in North America lived within the coverage range of 4G networks.
While it took around four years for 3G coverage to reach 95 percent of the population, 4G took two and a half years.
During 2008 and 2013, mobile revenue in North America grew 4.7 percent a year (CAGR). This was above the global average of 4.5 percent, and well ahead of Europe, where revenue declined at a CAGR of 3 percent per annum.
GSMA said North American mobile industry (both directly and indirectly) accounted for around 3 percent of regional gross domestic product (GDP), equivalent to around $550 billion. This figure is expected to increase to around $620 billion by 2020.
In addition, there were around 1.1 million direct jobs supported by the mobile ecosystem across the region, with a further 380,000 supported indirectly.
The mobile ecosystem made a direct contribution of over $63 billion in public funding in 2013, even before considering regulatory and spectrum fees.
Baburajan K
[email protected]