LTE Connections Near 1 Billion in 2Q

The number of global LTE connections continued to rapidly increase in the second quarter of 2015, hitting nearly 755 million connections worldwide as of June, according to a report from 4G Americas and Ovum. The figure marks a 141 percent increase over the same quarter last year.

"The industry is focusing a lot of time and energy on 5G," said 4G Americas president Chris Pearson. "However, LTE is the fastest growing mobile broadband technology on record and is expected to reach 3.6 billion connections worldwide by 2020 when 5G is expected to be launched."

According to the report North America remained dominant with a 47.5 percent of the LTE market share. The regions with the next highest market share rankings are Western Europe at 19 percent and and Oceania, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia at 16.25 percent.

Penetration of LTE in terms of the number of LTE connections as a percentage of the population was also highest in North America at 55 percent, compared to 24 percent in Western Europe and 17 percent in Oceania, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia.

"North America continued its tremendous leadership in LTE with metrics such as coverage, share of market and penetration," Pearson said. "Network operators in the region continue to expand and upgrade their LTE and LTE-Advanced networks, including deployment of VoLTE, carrier aggregation and other important enhancements."

Despite North America’s coverage and market share dominance, the highest growth rate was actually generated by Latin America, which saw a 324 percent increase year-over-year for a total of 22.5 million subscriptions. Still, LTE has plenty of room to grow, as it accounts for only 3 percent of the market share in Latin America and the Caribbean where GSM (54 percent) and HSPA (41 percent) remain the dominant players.

"LTE continues to grow at a rapid pace in Latin America with new network launches being announced almost every month," 4G Americas Director of Latin America and the Caribbean Jose Otero added. "The announcements by various governments of their intentions to allocate more spectrum for the offering of mobile broadband helps to provide a brighter outlook for LTE growth in Latin America."

According to 4G Americas figures, LTE networks currently exists across 425 commercialized networks in 145 countries around the globe, with 88 additional  LTE-Advanced commercial networks spread through 45 countries. The number of LTE-Advanced networks increased by 21 networks in the last quarter alone and the total number of LTE connections is forecast to reach 3 billion by the end of 2019.

In North America, there are 68 commercial LTE networks and 7 LTE-Advanced networks supplying 198 million connections across the U.S. and Canada. The number of LTE connections in North America is expected to reach 206 million by the end of this year and nearly 400 million by the end of 2020.