4G WORLD — 4G’s super speeds are reaching more people around the world every day, and that number will hit a staggering 675 million mobile users in just four years’ time.
Such is the finding of Yankee Group’s new report, “4G Creates Opportunity for All Ecosystem Players." That rapid increase will be driven by a spike in smartphone owners, which will rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 percent between 2010 and 2015. Tablets, Yankee Group says, will grow even faster, hitting an 81 percent CAGR during the same five-year span.
Most important to operators, device growth will require a significant upgrade in network capacity, namely 4G. Yankee Group data predicts the combined total of LTE and WiMAX mobile lines will reach 675 million by 2015, up from just 31 million at the end of 2011.
“Stunning mobile data growth driven by broad adoption of smartphones, tablets and USB modems is pushing today’s 3G networks into the performance red zone," said Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group research VP and co-author of the report. “The acceleration of 4G deployments is paramount to meeting consumers’ insatiable appetites for content and applications on the go."
The report also finds that, in particular, mobile video consumption is rising, with 40 percent of smartphone owners in the U.S., U.K. and France watching video on their mobile devices at least once a week. More than 40 percent of Europeans consider mobile Internet access to be one of their top three most important features when choosing a handset.
Perhaps most interesting is that the industry still needs to educate the public on 4G. A Yankee Group survey says nearly half (44 percent) of all consumers haven’t heard of 4G or don’t understand it.
