As the end of Q2 2020 there were 5.55 billion LTE subscriptions worldwide, according to the latest data from Omdia and the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), accounting for 60.4% of all global mobile subscriptions.
Nearly 800 million LTE subscriptions were added in the preceding 12 months, representing a 16.7% YoY growth.
Some additional highlights from GSA:
- 5G subscriptions doubled in the second quarter of 2020 to reach at least 137.7 million globally (representing 1.5% of the entire global mobile market).
- There will be nearly 10.30 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2025.
- LTE is expected to reach its peak point in terms of technology market share at the end of 2021 (at 63.3%), and to reach its peak point in terms of subscriber numbers at the end of 2022 (at 6.07 billion subscribers).
- From 2023 the LTE market is forecast to start to decline slowly, as customers migrate to 5G.
- Between end 2020 and end 2025, the share of the market represented by GSM subscriptions will fall from 15.1% to 5.6%, and the share represented by W-CDMA will decline from 19.4% to 11.3%.
- By the end of 2025, 5G will account for nearly 30% of the global market (at 3.03 billion subscriptions), although LTE will still be dominant at 53.5% of all global mobile subscriptions.