Bright future for 3.5 G (HSDPA)
July 18, 2006;
More than 300 million 3.5G mobile broadband subscribers in 2011, despite initial lack of devices.
The number of 3.5G mobile broadband
subscribers worldwide will boom more than ten-fold from 2.5
million in 2006 to more than 300 million in 2011, but market
growth in 2006-07 will be restrained by a lack of compelling
devices, according to Future Mobile Broadband: HSPA, EV-DO,
WiMAX & LTE, a new Strategic Report from Informa Telecoms &
Media.
"A lack of compelling devices and content led to delayed
launches and slow take-up of WCDMA and EV-DO services, and early
HSDPA and EV-DO Revision A services are expected to suffer from
the very same problems," says Malik Saadi, principal analyst at
Informa Telecoms & Media and co-author of the Future Mobile
Broadband Strategic Report.
Saadi notes that most HSDPA services are launching with only PC
cards and notebooks, although a number of early handsets are
also arriving. "However it is striking that as of June no major
vendor has unveiled plans for EV-DO Rev. A handsets, although
data cards are on the way."
A lack of a wide range of compelling handsets will slow
mass-market takeup of 3.5G mobile broadband services in 2006-07,
but handsets will start to mature in 2008, leading to a sharp
increase in 3.5G handset sales and subscribers in 2008-09. By
2011 85% of 3.5G devices sold will be handsets, and the
remaining 15% will be notebooks and PC cards.
3.5G mobile broadband subscribers are defined as subscribers
using services based on HSDPA, HSUPA, EV-DO Revision A or EV-DO
Revision B.
To view graph click here.
Source: Informa.
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