Hi Guys,

Me again.

I wanted to share with you some information that has yet to be made public (and most likely won't be) regarding LTE Subscriber numbers. All data in this report is as of December 31st 2014.

GLOBAL LTE MARKET

The number of LTE subscribers exceeded 490 million at the end of 2014 thanks to the launch in China as well as increased subscriber take up worldwide. This is up from around 200 million subscribers at the start of 2014 and it's estimated that by the end of 2015, global 4G connections will reach 875 million. This is compared to the current 1,700 million 3G subscribers worldwide.

There are now 360 operators worldwide who have launched commercial LTE services in 124 countries worldwide. This number is set to grow to over 450 networks by the end of the year and There is a total of 2,650 LTE compatible devices including smartphones, modems, tablets etc… Of that number, 1,400 are LTE smartphones Many operators are bringing HD voice service to their LTE customers by introducing VoLTE, technology. Availability of VoLTE-enabled terminals is rapidly expanding. 187 VoLTE-capable phones (including carrier and frequency variants) have been announced by leading vendors including Apple, Asus, Fujitsu, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, Sharp and Sony Mobile.

Here are some highlights-

NORTH AMERICA
- North America now has just under 160 million 4G users. This is mostly lead by the US market where 4G is bundled into data plans.
- There are over 47 commercial LTE networks in North America. All networks in the USA now offer 4G.
- Verizon is the USA's largest 4G network in terms of subscribers with almost 70 million as of the end of 2014. AT&T follows with over 50 million. Sprint, T-Mobile, other local carriers and Canadian carriers make up the rest.

APAC
- The APAC market has seen the most growth in the last year and is due to grow considerably this year. APAC started off with under 80 million users at the start of the year and now has over 230 million users as of the end of 2014. A lot of this is down to China's 4G launch as well as continued subscriber penetration in Japan, South Korea and other markets. There are now more than 62 live LTE networks in the APAC region.
- China Is the number 1 market in the APAC region with over 100 million subscribers. China Mobile is the largest 4G network in the world in terms of subscribers with more than 90 million as of the end of 2014. China is forecast to continue growing to more than 300 million subscribers by the end of 2015 and has already demonstrated its dominance by rolling out over 733,000 4G base stations.
- Japan is currently the second largest market in this region in terms of 4G LTE Subscribers with over 60 million. NTT Docomo holds around 50% market share with 28.3 million subscribers.
- South Korea has grown to over 36 million subscribers and is one of a small amount of countries to have VoLTE, 100% coverage and LTE-A. SK Telecom holds 17 million customers, KT has has 11 million and LG U+ has 8.5 million.
- Singapore has seen immense growth in it's 4G market. It was at one point the fastest growing country for 4G LTE subscribers.

EUROPE
- There are now more than 70 million subscribers in Europe thanks to more aggressive pricing and marketing of 4G tariffs.
- Europe has 108 commercial LTE networks in almost 50 countries. This is more than any other region yet Europe still has a very low number of subscribers. This is to be expected as populations are low and uptake of 4G is slow due to pricing, however it is quickly growing fast
- EE (UK network) is the largest 4G network in Europe with almost 8 million subscribers as of the end of 2014. The UK now has over 17 million LTE subscribers accounting for almost 25% of Europe's total LTE subscribers.

OTHER
- Latin America has seen an uptake in 4G subscribers with Brazil leading the way.
- Subscriptions in Middle East and Africa continue to grow at a steady rate.
- Other regions account for ~32 million subscribers.

Facts & Figures
- Over 550 networks have committed to rolling out LTE with 360 already launched
- LTE1800 is the most popular band deployed on over 45% of all commercial networks followed by LTE800.
- LTE Advanced has been rolled out by 50 MNO's. More than 100 have committed to and are trailing LTE Advanced.
- VoLE has been rolled out to over 15 networks with 70 committing to the technology in the future.

http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/r...psd0dc1f3c.jpg

There was something from the GSMA that said coverage was 27% (world population) at the end of the year and will rise to 35% this year. Well, at least it's not another 98% promise!

Olaf was going for 99% planetary coverage but then BT came along!
Hahahahaha
Jabba, are you already getting my coat or shall I get it?

You can zoom out on the EE coverage map to show the whole planet and beyond so you might be on to something!

Yeh, a lot of the data here is from the GSMA. I'm surprised how they got the number of LTE operators wrong. Maybe they didn't count some of them for whatever reason.

But yeh, those worldwide coverage percentages are pretty meaningless tbh. It reminds me of Vodafone saying they've upgraded X% of their network and they're always talking about the upgrades being across multiple countries.

Not too many committing to VoLTE, maybe they want to see how other fair with it?

Thanks for spotting a mistake for me haha.

Should be 80 networks looking to invest in VoLTE in 42 countries.

The number is expected to grow.

Do remember that many networks commit to LTE first before committing to the next stage such as VoLTE or LTE Advanced. so far only 108 networks have committed to LTE Advanced. No doubt these numbers will continue to grow.

I would have thought VoLTE is a bigger priority than headline grabbing LTE Advanced but there you go!