The most successful region outside North America for LTE is Oceania and south and south-east Asia, where 34% have moved to 4G; in western Europe only 30% have moved; and in Latin America and the Caribbean only 12% of customers are on LTE. The figures are from Ovum.
“LTE continues to make tremendous progress in the Americas and the entire world in terms of connections, deployments and technical development,” said Chris Pearson, president of industry lobby group 5G Americas.
LTE is available to 74% of North Americans, the same survey shows, with only 39% of western Europeans having access and 35% of the population of Oceania and south and south-east Asia.
Oceania and south and south-east Asia – what most people call Asia-Pacific – has only 34% usage of LTE, but its sheer population means in real terms it has more than half the world’s market for 4G. The region has 825 million of the world’s 1.4 billion LTE customers, 57% of the total.
North America has 268 million, 19% of the world’s total. The market is growing at 36% a year in North America, with 70 million new LTE users in the last 12 months. LTE is forecast to reach 398 million North Americans by the end of 2020.
Worldwide, LTE is growing by 89% a year, with 684 million new 4G customers added in the past 12 months. Worldwide, LTE accounts for nearly 19% of all 7.5 billion cellular connections.
