According to ABI Research, globally the long term evolution (LTE) subscriptions increased by 149 million in the fourth quarter of 2015.
At present, Asia Pacific leads the global LTE subscriptions with 48.6 per cent share, followed by North America and Western Europe. Worldwide, China continues to lead the LTE market with about 100 million LTE subscriptions in 2014. Further, China is expected to overtake the United States to become the largest 4G market in the world, with 500 million LTE subscriptions, or 36.5 per cent of the domestic cellular subscriptions in 2015.
ABI Research states that the LTE subscriptions are expected to cannibalise the 3G subscriber base. Further, with the growth of LTE subscriber base, 2G subscriber base is also expected to decline through 2012. The research firm expects global 2G subscribers to be around 1.69 billion at the end of 2020.
