Spending on LTE infrastru cture is set to peak at US$23.3 billion this year as operators approach the end of their network deployments, predicted IHS this week.
Global LTE equipment revenue fell 1% sequentially to $6 billion in the first quarter of 2015, according to the research firm’s Infonetics arm.
"As we anticipated, we’re reaching the peak of LTE rollouts, and LTE is now set to perform at $6 billion a quarter for some time as operators complete their major remaining rollouts," said Stéphane Téral, research director for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at IHS, late on Thursday.
The bad news for equipment vendors is that this level of investment will not be sufficient to offset continuing declines in 2G and 3G infrastructure spending.
Indeed, on a sequential basis, combined spending on 2G, 3G, and 4G infrastructure fell 8% to $11 billion in the first quarter.
It is worth noting though that on a year-on-year basis, spending was up by 4% in Q1, "driven by unabated TDD LTE activity in China," said IHS.
China has earmarked a whopping 430 billion yuan (€62.2 billion) to spend on expanding the country’s fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure, and another CNY700 billion (€101.3 billion) between 2016 and 2017.
However, while foreign vendors have won substantial 4G contracts from Chinese telcos in recent years, the bulk of the windfall has gone to domestic players.
