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Idate, a reliable resource for tracking telecom, Internet and media markets since 1977, published a blog post written by Frédéric PUJOL, Idate's Head of the radio technologies & spectrum practice, based on their World LTE Market - Database & Status Report dated July 2013, discussing APAC's leadership in the high speed LTE market. According to the blog post, globally, Asia-Pacific market is second in the LTE, behind the American, with more than 35 million subscriptions in Q1 2013. The report expects 540 million LTE subscriptions at the end of 2017 in Asia-Pacific with South Korea alone hitting 20 million subscriptions in April 2013 and China and India being the next major drivers for TD-LTE growth for the region.
The blog post highlighted the following facts: South Korea: the two leading operators in South Korea, SK Telecom and LG U+, launched LTE in 2011. KT followed in 2012. Given the very rapid deployment of LTE networks with 100% of the population covered in May 2012, the competition between the three operators and the launch of LTE-Advanced in 2013, South Korea will remain one of the most dynamic LTE markets in the world. Japan: the Japanese market saw an acceleration of LTE deployments due to SoftBank’s strategic move. The operator is operating both a LTE FDD and TD-LTE network and forced NTT DOCOMO to accelerate its LTE deployment. India: The first TD-LTE service was launched by Bharti Airtel in April 2012. Delays in spectrum allocation for lower bands limit LTE expansion today. Administrative issues linked to spectrum and availability of TD-LTE devices will be key to the uptake of LTE technology in India. We lowered our forecasts considering that adoption is slower than expected: in September, Bharti Airtel had only 3,000 TD-LTE subscriber. China: recent news indicated that the Government might award LTE licenses in end-2013. China Mobile is deploying more than 200,000 TD-LTE base stations and will be able to quickly grow its LTE subscriber base once the Government authorizes commercial operation. Australia: take-up of LTE is quite fast and the country recently auctioned the 700 MHz band.
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