The global migration from 3G to 4G continues to gather pace. Global LTE connections grew 59 percent from June 2016 to June 2017 reaching 2.37 billion, according to 5G Americas and Ovum, and now constitutes 30% of all cellular connections.
Some highlights:
- North America achieved 327 million LTE subscriptions by the end of June 2017 with some of the highest penetration rates, most extensive coverage and largest market share for LTE in the world.
- Latin America nearly doubled LTE connections to 159 million from 81.5 million year-over-year at 2Q 2017 increasing by 95 percent.
- New LTE deployments continue and as of mid-August TeleGeography (GlobalComm) reported 551 commercial LTE deployments worldwide, while 206 of those operators have already evolved to LTE-Advanced.
- Worldwide, LTE is forecast to continue its momentum, reaching over 2.5 billion connections by the end of 2017, 3 billion in 2018 and 4.9 billion connections in 2022.
- 5G is expected to accumulate connections starting in 2019 and by 2022, it is forecast to have 389 million connections worldwide.
- In Latin America, there are now 695 million total mobile wireless subscriptions, of which 159 million were LTE connections; 77.6 million new LTE connections added year-over-year from 2Q 2016.
