Technology market research firm Infonetics Research, part of IHS, reported today LTE was key in pushing mobile infrastructure revenue to $46.8 billion worldwide, up 10 percent from 2013.
"We have consistently said that LTE was supposed to pull the entire mobile infrastructure market out of the funk, and so far it has. LTE revenue grew 69 percent in 2014 from the previous year," said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. "That said, we've reached the peak of LTE buildouts on this planet, and we believe market dynamics will cause the mobile macro infrastructure industry to enter a long-tail decline beginning in 2016 until 5G eventually kicks in."
In its Q4 and year-end Mobile Infrastructure Equipment report, Infonetics forecasted the 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market will drop from $47 billion in 2014 to $27 billion in 2019, as global macrocell deployments and LTE installments are completed.
The full press release and a chart can be found here.