Base station market is driven by the demand for smartphones, regular phones and wireless broadband services, despite the poor worldwide economy, according to In-Stat.
The firm said that the newly deployed macro cellular base stations will grow over 10% in 2009. The WCDMA base station shipments account for about 50% of the total base station revenue and by 2013, the percent that WCDMA contributes to total base station revenue will exceed 70% and LTE base stations will account for another 20% of the total.
From 2008 to 2013, total base station revenue is forecast to decrease by almost 3% CAGR and base stations continue to drop in price. The mix of base stations is changing in favour of smaller base stations and LTE base stations, according to the research.
In-Stat said, while there is no growth for GSM in areas that are transitioning to WCDMA , there is growth of GSM subscribers in Africa, India, China, and Latin and South America. TD-SCDMA base station technology is demonstrating the fastest growth.
Allen Nogee, analyst at In-Stat, said: “WCDMA/HSPA base stations will be the work horses of wireless data networks. Many operators, worldwide, are in the process of rolling out, or enhancing, their current CDMA networks, including a very large rollout of CDMA by China Unicom.
“China Unicom was awarded the WCDMA contract to provide services in China. WCDMA will gain the most subscribers, with CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA taking the distant second and third positions.”
