Disqus
ABI Research forecasts global GSM subscriber growth to slow from a year-on-year rate of over 22% in 2006/07 to 14% in 2008/09, mainly due to the increased migration of subscribers to UMTS 3G technologies. UMTS (including HSDPA) experienced a nearly 83% year-on-year growth rate in 2006/07, and the research company expects global GSM subscriber numbers to show a negative growth rate starting in 2013.
“Within the GSM subscriber population, EDGE is expected to maintain a high growth rate following increased deployments in emerging markets,” says Asia-Pacific vice president Jake Saunders. “Nonetheless, GSM (including EDGE and GPRS) is still expected to have the highest number of subscribers of all mobile technologies, with a 70% global market share in 2013 (dropping from 78% in 2007.)”
Other findings:
- W-CDMA (including HSDPA and HSPA) global market share is expected to increase from a little over 5% in 2007 to nearly 14% in 2013.
- CDMAone and iDEN subscribers are diminishing quickly, and by 2010 most of them will have migrated to either GSM or CDMA2000 networks.
- CDMA2000 (including EVDO) has not experienced as high growth rates as UMTS.
More information is available on ABI Research’s website.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
