Asia-Pacific Drove RAN Market to Double-digit Growth in 2014

​Asia-Pacific regional growth in basestations dominated in 2014 as it continued to account for the majority of worldwide basestation deployments. According to ABI Research, Asia-Pacific is now by far the largest market for LTE, followed by North America and Western Europe, with Asia-Pacific regional installed base growing by double-digits in 2014.

LTE macro RAN spending also set records in 2014 as LTE expenditures accounted for a majority of RAN spending. Ericsson maintained its number one market share rank for 2014 followed by Huawei, Nokia Networks, and Alcatel-Lucent all with double-digit shares, according to ABI Research estimates.

One of the main mobile network operators behind this trend is China Mobile—a major proponent of Time-Division LTE or TD-LTE, and one of the three nationwide carriers in China licensed to deploy 4G networks. “After deploying over 700,000 TD-LTE basestations in 2014, China Mobile now plans a massive expansion of an additional 300,000 basestations to reach 1 million by the end of 2015,” says Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research. “The company plans peak CAPEX in 2014 and 2015 to help construct what it claims will be the world’s largest 4G network.”

By 2019, ABI Research expects China will dominate the LTE basestation market in the Asia-Pacific region, and have the largest LTE installed base in the world. In a region which will account for almost three quarters of the worldwide LTE installed base, China will operate over half of the worldwide LTE installed base, and it will be challenging for infrastructure vendors to achieve scale economies without a major presence there.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Macro Basestations Market Research.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.