2013/11/18 China mobilizing for huge LTE rollout; Mobile infrastructure growth braking in Japan

Campbell, CALIFORNIA, November 14, 2013—Market research firm Infonetics Research released excerpts from its latest 2G, 3G, 4G Mobile Infrastructure and Subscribers in Japan and China market share and forecast report, which tracks GSM, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA2000, and LTE equipment and subscribers in Japan and China.

“For the second time in Chinese mobile spending history, only a third of total budgeted capex was spent in the first half of the year. This is even lower than last year, and half of what the total should be at this time of year!” says Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. “China Mobile and China Telecom dragged total capex while China Unicom is ahead of its spending plans.”

• The Chinese mobile infrastructure market was down 21% in the first half of 2013 compared to the same period a year ago, to US$2 billion
• Meanwhile, 2013 is still shaping up as a solid year fueled by China Mobile’s massive TD-LTE rollout for potential commercial service by year’s end and the Chinese government’s awarding of 4G licenses
• China’s LTE market is expected to rise 127% year-over-year in 2013
• 63% of China’s 1.2 billion mobile subscribers are on China Mobile’s GSM/TD-SCDMA network

“Year-over-year growth in the Japanese mobile infrastructure market slowed to 8% in the first half of 2013. What we saw was basically a continuation of the LTE network construction started a year ago by NTT Docomo, KDDI, and SoftBank Mobile,” notes Téral.

• Japan’s mobile infrastructure market totaled US$1.7 billion in the first half of 2013 (1H13), with LTE contributing US$1.4 billion of total revenue
  • The LTE spending pattern is directly correlated to the 3 Japanese mobile operators’ capex
• NSN is king of the Japanese radio market, followed by Ericsson and NEC
• NTT Docomo is Japan’s largest mobile operator, with 62 million subscribers, 14 million of which are on its LTE network
• Infonetics forecasts the Japanese mobile infrastructure industry to fall to US$2.6 billion in 2017, a 2012–2017 CAGR of -7.3%