According to Informa’s World Cellular Information Service quarterly subscriber reports, with 117 million subscribers UMTS/HSDPA is commercially available through twice as many operators as other 3G technologies -– 167 operators in 69 countries, compared to 71 operators in 44 countries offering CDMA EV-DO. In other words – of the 172 million mobile broadband 3G subscribers worldwide as of Q1 2007, 68% use UMTS/HSDPA.
The greatest quarterly growth of UMTS/HSDPA took place in North America, where this technology experienced an unprecedented 614% growth — from 350,000 subscribers to 2.5 million subscribers in three months ending March 2007.
“UMTS/HSDPA technology in North America will continue its steady growth as subscribers become aware of the tremendous applications and devices that make full use of these high speed wireless data networks,” Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas stated.